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http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924032409710

Fields,
Factories, and Workshops

or

Industry Combined with Agriculture, and
Brain Work with Manual Work

By PRINCE KROPOTKIN

New Edition, 1 6° . . . 90 cents net

" Prince Kropotkin possesses the general scientific temper. . . .
He seems to have been everywhere and to have read everything
so that his observations have certainly been widely extended. . . .
A book that should set people thinking and should lead them to
try by practical experience to lessen some of the acknowledged
evils of the present system. " — Tlie Times, London.

" Our readers are recommended to read carefully Kropotkin's
survey of manufacturing progress in foreign countries. . . . This
is clear and concise and presents just the kind of summary re-
quired by those who, without time for intricate details, must rest
content with a general statement of the world's industrial move-
ment. Particularly interesting is the description of the wonder-
ful advance now being made in agricultural methods. . . . The
book is a most valuable contribution to the discussion of a prob-
lem of national and of world-wide importance," — Tht Daily
News, London.

' ' A book which is an admirable example of its author's lucid-
ity of style and of his capacity for making vital with human
interest dry statistical and industrial facts. ... A work that
presents a new outlook in social economics and is at the same
time most forcible in its demonstration of fact." — London West-
minster Gazette.

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

New York London

FIELDS, FACTORIES

AND

WORKSHOPS

OR

INDUSTRY COMBINED WITH AGRICULTURE
AND BRAIN WORK WITH MANUAL WORK

BY

P. KROPOTKIN

Illustrated and Unabridged

SECOND LARGE IMPRESSION OF THE POPULAR EDITION

New York : G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

London : SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., Ltd.

1901

PREFACE.

Under the name of profits, rent, interest upon
capital, surplus value, and the like, economists
have eagerly discussed the benefits which the
owners of land or capital, or some privileged
nations, can derive, either from the under-paid
work of the wage-labourer, or from the inferior
position of one class of the community towards
another class, or from the inferior economical
development of one nation towards another
nation. These profits being shared in a very
unequal proportion between the different indivi-
duals, classes and nations engaged in production,
considerable pains were taken to study the
present apportionment of the benefits, and its
economical and moral consequences, as well as
the changes in the present economical organisa-
tion of society which might bring about a more
equitable distribution of a rapidly accumulating
wealth. It is upon questions relating to the
right to that increment of wealth that the hottest
battles are now fought between economists of
different schools.

In the meantime the great question — "What
have we to produce, and how ? " necessarily

IV PREFACE.

remained in the background. Political economy,
as it gradually emerges from its semi-scientific
stage, tends more and more to become a science
devoted to the study of the needs of men and
of the means for satisfying them with the least
possible waste of energy, that is : — a sort of
physiology of society. But few economists, as
yet, have recognised that this is the proper
domain of economics, and have attempted to
treat their science from this point of view. The
main subject of social economy, i.e., the economy
of energy required for the satisfaction of hiiman
needs, is consequently the last subject which one
expects to find treated in a concrete form in
economical treatises.

The following pages are a contribution to a
portion of this vast subject. They contain a
discussion of the advantages which civilised
societies could derive from a combination of
industrial pursuits with intensive agriculture, and
of brain work with manual work.

The importance of such a combination has
not escaped the attention of a number of
students of social science. It was eagerly dis-
cussed some fifty years ago under the names of
"harmonised labour," "integral education," and
so on. It was pointed out at that time that
the greatest sum total of well-being can be
obtained when a variety of agricultural, industrial
and intellectual pursuits are combined in each
community ; and that man shows his best when
he is in a position to apply his usually-varied

PREFACE. V

capacities to several pursuits in the farm, the
workshop, the factory, the study or the studio,
instead of being riveted for life to one of these
pursuits only.

At a much more recent date, in the seventies,
Herbert Spencer's theory of evolution gave
origin in Russia to a remarkable work. The
Theory of Progress, by M. M. Mikhailovsky.
The part which belongs in progressive evolution
to differentiation, and the part which belongs in
it to an integration of aptitudes and activities,
were discussed by the Russian author with depth
of thought, and Spencer's differentiation-formula
was accordingly completed.

And, finally, out of a number of smaller
monographs, I must mention a suggestive little
book by J. R. Dodge, the United States' statis-:
tician [Farm and Factory: Aids derived by
Agriculture from Industries, New York, 1886).
The same question was discussed in it from a
practical American point of view.

Half a century ago a harmonious union be-
tween agricultural and industrial pursuits, as also
between brain work and manual work, could
only be a remote desideratum. The conditions
under which the factory system asserted itself,
as well as the obsolete forms of agriculture
which prevailed at that time, prevented such a
union from being feasible. Synthetic production
was impossible. However, the wonderful sim-
plification of the technical processes in both
industry and agriculture, partly due to an ever-

VI PREFACE.

increasing division of labour — in analogy with
what we see in biology — has rendered the syn-
thesis possible ; and a distinct tendency towards a
synthesis of human activities becomes now apparent
in modern economical evolution. This tendency
is analysed in the subsequent chapters — a special
weight being laid upon the present possibilities
of agriculture, which are illustrated by a number
of examples borrowed from different countries,
and upon the small industries to which a new
impetus is being given by the new methods of
transmission of motive power.

The substance of these essays was published
in 1 888- 1 890 in the Nineteenth Century, and of
one of them in the Forum. However, the ten-
dencies indicated therein have been confirmed
during the last ten years by such a mass of
evidence that a very considerable amount of new
matter had to be introduced, while the chapters
on agriculture and the small trades had to be
written anew.

I take advantage of this opportunity to ad-
dress my best thanks to the editors of the Nine-
teenth Century and the Forum for their kind
permission of reproducing these essays in a new
form, as also to those friends and correspondents
who have aided me in collecting information
about agriculture and the petty trades.

P. Kropotkin.

Bromley, Kent, 1898.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Preface iii

Chapter I. The Decentralisation of Industries

Division of labour and integration — The spread of industrial
skill — Each nation its own producer of manufactured goods
— The United Kingdom — ■ France — Germany — Russia —
" German Competition ".

Chapter II. The Decentralisation of Industries (continued) . 22

Italy and Spain — India — Japan — The United States — The cotton,
woollen and silk trades — The growing necessity for each
country to rely upon home-consumers.

40

Chapter III. The Possibilities of Agriculture

The development of agriculture — The over-population prejudice
— Can the soil of Great Britain feed its inhabitants ?—
British agriculture — Compared with agriculture in France ;
in Belgium — Market gardening : its achievements — Is it
profitable to grow wheat in Great Britain ? — American
agriculture : intensive culture in the States.

Chapter IV. The Possibilities of Agriculture (continued) . 83

The doctrine of Malthus — Progress in wheat-growing — East
Flanders — Jersey — Potato crops, past and pfesent — Irrigation
— Major Hallett's experiments — Planted wheat.

6

PAGE

Chapter V. The Possibilities of Agriculture (continued) ■ 104

Extension of market gardening and fruit growing : in France ;
in the United States — Culture under glass — Kitchen gardens
under glass — Hot-house culture : in Guernsey ; in Belgium
— Conclusion.

Chapter VI. Small Industries and Industrial Villages 126

Industry and Agriculture — The small industries — Different types
— Petty trades in Great Britain : Sheffield, Leeds, Lake
District, Birmingham— P«<l!y trades in France ; weaving
and various others — The Lyons region — Paris, emporium
s>f petty trades.

Chapter VII. Small Industries and Industrial Villages

{continued) . 162

Petty trades in Germany : discussions upon the subject and
conclusions arrived at — Petty trades in Russia — Con-
clusions.

Chapter VIIL Brain Work and Manual Work .... 184

Divorce between science and handicraft — Technical education —
Complete education — The Moscow system ; applied at
Chicago, Boston, Aberdeen — Concrete teaching — Present
waste of time — Science and technics — Advantages which
science can derive from a combination of brain work with
manual work.

Chapter IX. Conclusion 213

APPENDIX.

A. French Imports . . 221

B. Growth of Industry in Russia 221

C. Iron Industry in Germany , ... 222

D. Machinery in Germany .... . 223

CONTENTS. IX

PAGE

E. Cotton Industry in Germany 224

F. Mining and Textiles in Austria 225

G. Mr. Giffen's and Mr. Flux's Figures concerning the
Position of the United Kingdom in the Inter-
national Trade 226

H. Cotton Factories in India 227

I. Irrigated Meadows in Italy 229

J. The Channel Islands 230

K. Planted Wheat : the Rothamsted Challenge . . . 236

L. Replanted Wheat ......... 238

M. Imports of Vegetables to the United Kingdom . . 240

N. Market Gardening in Belgium 242

O. Petty Trades in the Lyons Region . . 242

P. Small Industries in Paris .... . 247

Q. Petty Trades in Germany 248

Alphabetical Index . ... 250

CHAPTER I.

THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES.

Division of labour and integration— The spread of industrial skill— Each
nation its own producer of manufactured goods — The United King-
dom — France — Germany — Russia — " German competition "

Who does not remember the remarkable chapter by
which Adam Smith opens his inquiry into the nature
and causes of the wealth of nations? Even those of
our contemporary economists who seldom revert to
the works of the father of political economy, and
often forget the ideas which inspired them, know
that chapter almost by heart, so often has it been
copied and recopied since. It has become an article
of faith; and the economical history of the century
which has elapsed since Adam Smith wrote has been,
so to speak, an actual commentary upon it

" Division of labour " was its watchword. And
the division and subdivision — the permanent subdivision
— of functions has been pushed so far as to divide
humanity into castes which are almost as firmly estab-
lished as those of old India. We have, first, the
broad division into producers and consumers : little-
consuming producers on the one hand, little-producing
consumers on the other hand. Then, amidst the
former, a series of further subdivisions ; the manual
worker and the intellectual worker, sharply separated
from one another to the detriment of both ; the agri-
cultural labourers and the workers in the manufacture ;
and, amidst the mass of the latter, numberless sub-

I

2 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

divisions again — so minute, indeed, that the modern
ideal of a workman seems to be a man or a woman,
or even a girl or a boy, without the knowledge of any
handicraft, without any conception whatever of the
industry he or she is employed in, who is only capable
of making all day long and for a whole life the same
infinitesimal part of something : who from the age of
thirteen to that of sixty pushes the coal cart at a
given spot of the mine or makes the spring of a pen-
knife or " the eighteenth part of a pin " Mere ser-
vants to some machine of a given description ; mere
flesh-and-bone parts of some immense machinery ;
having no idea how and why the machinery performs its
rhythmical movements.

Skilled artisanship is being swept away as a sur-
vival of a past condemned to disappear. For the
artist who formerly found aesthetic enjoyment in the
work of his hands is substituted the human slave of an
iron slave. Nay, even the agricultural labourer, who
formerly used to find a relief from the hardships of his
life in the home of his ancestors — the future hon)e of
his children — in his love of the field, and in a keen
intercourse with nature, even he has been doomed to
disappear for the sake of division of labour. He is
an anachronism we are told : he must be substituted,
in a Bonanza farm, by an occasional servant hired for
the summer, and discharged as the autumn comes :
a tramp who will never again see the field he has
harvested once in his life. "An affair of a few years,"
the economists say, " to reform agriculture in accord-
ance with the true principles of division of labour and
modern industrial organisation."

Dazzled with the results obtained by our century
of marvellous inventions, especially in England, our
economists and political men went still farther in
their dreams of division of labour. They proclaimed
the necessity of dividing the whole of humanity into

THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES. 3

national workshops having each of them its own speci-
aht)^ We were taught, for instance, that Hungary
and Russia are predestined by nature to grow corn
in order to feed the manufacturing countries ; that
Britain had to provide the world-market with cottons,
iron goods and coal ; Belgium with woollen cloth ; and
so on. Nay, within each nation, each region had to
have its own speciality. So it has been for some time
since ; so it ought to remain. Fortunes have been
made in this way, and will continue to be made in the
same way. It being proclaimed that the wealth of!
nations is measured by the amount of profits made ;
by the few, and that the largest profits are made by '
means of a specialisation of labour, the question was
not conceived to exist as to whether human beings
would always submit to such a specialisation ; whether
nations could be specialised like isolated workmen.
The theory was good for to-day — why should we care
for to-morrow .' To-morrow might bring its own
theory !

And so it did. The narrow conception of life which
consisted in thinking that pro-fits are the only leading
motive of human society ; and the stubborn view which
supposes that what has existed yesterday would last
for ever, proved in disaccordance with the tendencies
of human life ; and life took another direction. Nobody
will deny the high pitch of production which may be
attained by specialisation. But, precisely in proportion
as the work required from the individual in modern
production becomes simpler and easier to be learned,
and, therefore, also more monotonous and wearisome —
the requirements of the individual for varying his work,
for exercising all his capacities, become more and more
prominent. Humanity perceives that there is no advan-
tage for the community in riveting a human being for
all his life to a given spot, in a workshop or a mine ;
no gain in depriving him of such work as would bring

4 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

him into free intercourse with nature, make of him a
conscious part of the grand whole, a partner in the
highest enjoyments of science and art, of free work and
creation.

f Nations, too, refuse to be speciaHsed. Each nation
1 is a compound aggregate of tastes and inclinations,
of wants and resources, of capacities and inventive
powers. The territory occupied by each nation is
again a most varied texture of soils and climates, of
hills and valleys, of slopes leading to a still greater
variety of territories and races. Variety is the distinctive
feature, both of the territory and its inhabitants ; and
that variety implies a variety of occupations. Agri-
culture calls manufactures into existence, and manu-
factures support agriculture. Both are inseparable ;
and the combination, the integration of both, brings
about the grandest results. In proportion as technical
knowledge becomes everybody's virtual domain, in pro-
portion as it becomes international, and can be concealed
no longer, each nation acquires the possibility of apply-
ing the whole variety of her energies to the whole
variety of industrial and agricultural pursuits. Know-
\ ledge ignores artificial political boundaries. So also
do the industries ; and the present tendency of humanity
is to have the greatest possible variety of industries
gathered in each country, in each separate region, side
by side with agriculture. The needs of human ag-
glomerations correspond thus to the needs of the
individual ; and while a temporary division of functions
remains the surest guarantee of success in each separate
undertaking, the permanent division is doomed to dis-
appear, and to be substituted by a variety of pursuits —
intellectual, industrial, and agricultural — corresponding
to the different capacities of the individual, as well as to
the variety of capacities within every human aggregate.
When we thus revert from the scholastics of our
text-books, and examine human life as a whole, we

THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES. 5

soon discover that, while all the benefits of a tempo-
rary division of labour must be maintained, it is high
time to claim those of the integration of labour.
Political economy has hitherto insisted chiefly upon
division. We proclaim integration , and we maintain
that the ideal of society — that is, the state towards
which society is already marching — is a society of in-
tegrated labour; a society where each individual is a
producer of both manual and intellectual work ; where
each able-bodied human being is a worker, and where
each worker works both in the field and the industrial
workshop ; where each aggregation of individuals, large
enough to dispose of a certain variety of natural re-
sources — it may be a nation, or rather a region — ^pro-
duces and itself consumes most of its own agricultural
and manufactured produce.

Of course as long as society remains organised so
as to permit the owners of the land and capital to
appropriate for themselves, under the protection of the
State and historical rights, the yearly surplus of human
production, no such change can be thoroughly accom-
plished. But the present industrial system, based upon
a permanent specialisation of functions, already bears
in itself the germs of its proper ruin. The industrial
crises, which grow more acute and protracted, and are
rendered still worse and still more acute by the arma-
ments and wars implied by the present system, are
rendering its maintenance more and more difficult.
Moreover, the workers plainly manifest their intention
to support no longer patiently the misery occasioned by
each crisis. And each crisis accelerates the day when
the present institutions of individual property and pro-
duction will be shaken to their foundations with such
internal struggles as will depend upon the more or less
good sense of the now privileged classes.

But we maintain also that any Socialist attempt at
remodelling the present relations between Capital and

6 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

Labour will be a failure, if it does not take into account
the above tendencies towards integration. Those ten-
dencies have not yet received, in our opinion, due
attention from the different Socialist schools — but they
[ must, [a reorganised society will have to abandon the
1 fallacy of nations specialised for the production of either
I agricultural or manufactured producej It will have to
' rely on itself for the production of food and many if
not most of the raw materials ; ( it must find the best
means of combining agriculture with manufacture — the
work in the field with a decentralised industry — and it
will have to provide for " integrated education," which
education alone, by teaching both science and handi-
craft from earliest childhood, can give to society the men
and women it really needs.

Each natibn her own agriculturist and manufacturer;
each individual working in the field and in some indus-
trial art ; each individual combining scientific knowledge
with the knowledge of a handicraft — such is, we affirm,
the present tendency of civilised nations.

The prodigious growth of industries in Great Britain,
and the simultaneous development of the international
traffic which now permits the transport of raw materials
and articles of food on a gigantic scale, have created
the impression that a few nations of West Europe were
destined to become the manufacturers of the world.
They need only — it was argued — to supply the market
with manufactured goods, and they will draw from all
over the surface of the earth the food they cannot grow
themselves, as well as the raw materials they need for
their manufactures. The steadily increasing speed of
transoceanic communications and the steadily increasing
facihties of shipping have contributed to enforce the
above impression. If we take the enthusiastic pictures
of international traffic, drawn in such a masterly way
by Neumann Spallart — the statistician and almost the
poet of the world-trade — we are inclined indeed to fall

THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES. 7

into ecstasy before the results achieved. " Why shall
we grow corn, rear oxen and sheep, and cultivate
orchards, go through the painful work of the labourer
and the farmer, and anxiously watch the sky in fear of
a bad crop, when we can get, with much less pain, moun-
tains of corn from: India, America, Hungary, or Russia,
meat from New Zealand, vegetables from the Azores,
apples from Canada, grapes from Malaga, and so on ? "
exclaim the West Europeans. " Already now," they say,
" our food consists, even in modest households, of pro-
duce gathered from all over the globe. Our cloth is
made out of fibres grown and wool sheared in all parts
of the world. The prairies of America and Australia;
the mountains and steppes of Asia ; the frozen wilder-
nesses of the Arctic regions ; the deserts of Africa and
the depths of the oceans ; the tropics and the lands of
the midnight sun are our tributaries. All races of men
contribute their share in supplying us with our staple
food and luxuries, with plain clothing and fancy dress,
while we are sendirig them in exchange the produce
of our higher intelligence, our technical knowledge, our
powerful industrial and commercial organising capa-
cities! Is it not a grand sight, this busy and intricate
exchange of produce all over the earth which has
suddenly grown up within a few years ? "

Grand it may be, but is it not a mere nightmare .'' Is
it necessary ? At what cost has it been obtained, and
how long will it last .''

Let us turn eighty years back. France lay bleeding
at the end of the Napoleonic wars. Her young industry,
which had begun to grow by the end of the last century,
was crushed down. Germany, Italy, were powerless on
the industrial field. The armies of the great Republic
had struck a mortal blow to serfdom on the Continent ;
but with the return of reaction efforts were made to
revive the decaying institution, and serfdom meant no
industry worth speaking of. The terrible wars between

8 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

France and England, which wars are often explained
by merely political causes, had a much deeper meanmg
— an economical meaning. They were wars for the
supremacy on the world market, wars against French
commerce and industry — and Britain won the battle.
She became supreme on the seas. Bordeaux was no
more a rival to London, and the French industries
seemed to be killed in the bud. And, favoured by the
powerful impulse given to natural sciences and tech-
nology by the great era of inventions, finding no serious
competitors in Europe, Britain began to develop her
manufactures. To produce on a large scale in immense
quantities became the watchword. The necessary human
! forces were at hand in the peasantry, partly driven by
i force from the land, partly attracted to the cities by
high wages. The necessary machinery was created, and
the British production of manufactured goods went on
at a gigantic pace. In the course of less than seventy
years — from 1810 to 1878 — the output of coal grew
from 10 to 133,000,000 tons; the imports of raw ma-
terials rose from 30 to 380,000,000 tons ; and the exports
of manufactured goods from 46 to 200,000,000- pounds.
The tonnage of the commercial fleet was nearly trebled
Fifteen thousand miles of railways were built

It is useless to repeat at what a cost the above results
were achieved. The terrible revelations of the parUa-
mentary commissions of 1 840-42 as to the atrocious con-
dition of the manufacturing classes, the tales of " cleared
estates" and kidnapped children are still fresh in the
memory. They will remain standing monuments for
showing by what means the great industry was implanted
in this country. But the accumulation of wealth in the
hands of the privileged classes was going on at a speed
never dreamed of before. The incredible riches which
now astonish the foreigner in the private houses of
England were accumulated during that period • the
exceedingly expensive standard of life which makes a

THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES. 9

person considered rich on the Continent appear as only
of modest means in Britain was introduced during that
time. The taxed property alone doubled during the
last thirty years of the above period, while during the
same years (1810 to 1878) no less than ii^ 1,112,000,000
— nearly ;^2,ooo,ooo,ooo by this time — ^was invested by
English capitalists either in foreign industries or in
foreign loans.

But the monopoly of industrial production could not
remain with England for ever. Neither industrial
knowledge nor enterprise could be kept for ever as a
privilege of these islands. Necessarily, fatally, they
began to cross the Channel and spread over the Con-
tinent. The Great Revolution had created in France
a numerous class of peasant-proprietors, who enjoyed
nearly half a century of a comparative well-being, or,
at least, of a guaranteed labour. The ranks of homeless
town workers increased slowly. But the middle-class
revolution of 1789-1793 had already made a distinction
between the peasant householders and the village
prolHaires, and, by favouring the former to the detri-
ment of the latter, it compelled the labourers who had
no household nor land to abandon their villages, and
thus to form the first nucleus of working classes
given up to the mercy of manufacturers. Moreover,
the peasant-proprietors themselves, after having enjoyed
a period of undeniable prosperity, began in their turn
to feel the pressure of bad times, and were compelled to
look for employment in manufactures. Wars and re-
volution had checked the growth of industry; but it
began to grow again during the second half of our
century ; it developed, it improved ; and now, notwith-
standing the loss of Alsace, France is no longer the
tributary to England for manufactured produce which
she was forty years ago. To-day her exports of manu-
factured goods are valued at nearly one-half of those of
Great Britain, and two-thirds of them are textiles ;

lO FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

while her imports of the same consist chiefly of the finer

sorts of cotton and woollen yarn — partly re-exported

as stuffs — and a small quantity of woollen goods. For

her own consumption France shows a decided tendency

( towards becoming entirely a self-supporting country,

~\ and for the sale of her manufactured goods she is tend-

. ing to rely, not on her colonies, but especially on her

I own wealthy home market*

V. Germany follows the same lines. During the last
twenty-five years, and especially since the last war, her
industry has undergone a thorough reorganisation.
Her machinery lias been thoroughly improved, and her
new-born manufactures are supplied with a machinery
which mostly represents the last word of technical pro-
gress ; she has plenty of workmen and technologists
endowed with a superior technical and scientific educa-
tion ; and in an army of learned chemists, physicists and
engineers her industry has a most powerful and intelli-
gent aid. As a whole, Germany offers now the spectacle
of a nation in a period of Aufschwung, with all the
forces of a new start in every domain of life. Thirty
years ago she was a customer to England. Now she is
already a competitor in the markets of the south and
east, and at the present speedy rate of growth of her
industries her competition will be soon yet more acute
than it is.

The wave of industrial production, after having had
its origin in the north-west of Europe, spreads towards
the east and south-east, always covering a wider circle.
And, in proportion as it advances east, and penetrates
into younger countries, it implants there all the improve-
ments due to a century of mechanical and chemical in-
ventions ; it borrows from science all the help that
science can give to industry ; and it finds populations
eager to grasp the last results of modern knowledge.

* See Appendix A.

THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES. II

The new manufactures of Germany begin where Man-
chester arrived after a century of experiments and grop-
ings ; and Russia begins where Manchester and Saxony
have now reached. Russia, in her turn, tries to emanci-
pate herself from her dependency upon Western Europe,
and rapidly begins to manufacture all those goods she
'formerly used to import, either from Britain or from
Germany.

Protective duties may, perhaps, sometimes help the
birth of new industries ; always at the expense of some
other growing industries, and always checking the im-
provement of those which already exist ; but the decen-
tralisation of manufactures goes on with or without
protective duties — I should even say, notwithstanding
the protective duties. Austria, Hungary and Italy
follow the same lines — they develop their home in-
dustries — and even Spain and Servia are going to join
the family of manufacturing nations. Nay, even India,
even Brazil and Mexico, supported by English and
German capital and knowledge, begin to start home
industries on their respective soils. Finally, a terrible
competitor to all European manufacturing countries has
grown up of late in the United States. In proportion
as technical education spreads more and more widely,
manufactures must grow in the States; and they do
grow at such a speed — an American speed — that in a
very few years the now neutral markets will be invaded
by American goods.

The monopoly of the first comers on the industrial
field has ceased to exist. And it will exist no more,
whatever may be the spasmodic efforts made to return
to a state of things already belonging to the domain
of history. New ways, new issues must be looked for :
the past has lived, and it will live no more.

Before going farther, let me illustrate the march of
industries towards the east by a few figures. And, to

12 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

begin with, let me take the example of Russia. Not
because I know it better, but because Russia is the
latest comer on the industrial field. Forty years ago
she was considered as the ideal of an agricultural nation,
doomed by nature itself to supply other nations with
food, and to draw her manufactured goods from the_
west. So it was, indeed, forty years ago — but it is so
no more.

In 1 86 1 — the year of the emancipation of the serfs
—Russia and Poland had only 14,060 manufactories,
which produced every year the value of 296,000,000
roubles (about i;36,ooo,ooo). Twenty years later
the number of establishments rose to 35,160, and their
yearly production became nearly four times the above,
i.e., 1,305,000,000 roubles (about ;^ 1 3 1 ,000,000) ; and
in 1894, although the census left the smaller manufac-
tures and all the industries which pay excise duties
(sugar, spirits, matches) out of account, the aggregate
production in the Empire reached already 1,759,000,000
roubles, i.e., ;£^ 180,000,000. The most noteworthy
feature of Russian industry is, that while the number
of workmen employed in the manufactures has not
even doubled since 1861 (it attained 1,555,000 in 1894),
the production per workman has more than doubled:
in has trebled in the leading industries. The average
was less than £70 per annum in 1861 ; it reaches now
;£^i63. The increase of production is thus chiefly due
to the improvement of machinery.

If we take, however, separate branches, and especially
the textile industries and the machinery works, the
progress appears still more striking. Thus, if we con-
sider the eighteen years which preceded 1879 (when the
import duties were increased by nearly 30 per cent, and
a protective policy was definitely adopted), we find that
even without protective duties the bulk of production
in cottons increased three times, while the number of
workers employed in that industry rose by only 2c, per

THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES. 1 3

cent. The yeajrly production of each worker had thus
grown from £4.$ to ;£"ii7. During the next nine years
(1880-89) the yearly returns were more than doubled,
attaining the respectable figure of ;£'49,ooo,ooo in money
and 3,200,000 cwts. in bulk ; and it must be remarked
that, with a population of 130,000,000 inhabitants, the
home market for Russian cottons is almost unlimited ;
while some cottons are also exported to Persia and
Central Asia.*

True, that the finest sorts of yarn, as well as sew-
ing cotton, have still to be imported. But Lancashire
manufacturers will soon see to that ; they now pletnt
their mills in Russia. Two large mills for spinning
the finest sorts of cotton jam were opened in Russia
last year, with the aid of English capital and English
engineers, and a factory for making thin wire for
cotton-carding has lately been opened at Moscow by
a well-known Manchester manufacturer. Capital is
international and, protection or no protection, it crosses
the frontiers.

The same is true of woollens. In this branch Russia
is relatively backward. However, wool-combing, spin-
ning and weaving mills, provided with the best modem
plant, are built every year in Russia and Poland by
English, German and Belgian mill-owners ; so that last
year four-fifths of the ordinary wool, and as much of the
finer sorts obtainable in Russia, were combed and spun
at home — one fifth part only of each being sent abroad.
The times when Russia was known as an exporter of
raw wool are thus irretrievably gone.t

* The yearly imports of raw cotton attain 4,000,000 cwts. ; out of
which 300,000 cwts. from Central Asia and Transcaucasia. These last
are a quite recent growth, the first plantations of the American cotton
tree having been introduced in Turkestan by the Russians, as well as the
first sorting and pressing establishments. The relative cheapness of the
plain cottons in Russia, and the good qualities of the printed cottons, have
attracted the attention of the British Commissioner at the Nijni Novgorod
Exhibition in 1897, and are spoken of at some length in his report.

+ The yearly production of the 1085 woollen mills of Russia and
Poland was valued at about ^12,000,000 in 1894.

14 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

In machinery works no comparison can even be made
between nowadays and 1861, or even 1870; the whole
of that industry having grown up within the last fifteen
years. In an elaborate report Prof. Kirpitcheff points
out that the progress realised can be best judged by the
perfection attained in Russia in building the best steam
engines and in the manufacture of water-pipes, which
fully compete with Glasgow work. Thanks to English
and French engineers to begin with, and afterwards to
technical progress within the country itself, Russia needs
no longer to import any part of her railway plant. And
as to agricultural machinery, we know, from several
British Consular reports, that Russian reapers and
ploughs successfully compete with the same implements
of both American and English make. During the last
eight or ten years this branch of manufactures has
largely developed in the Southern Urals (as a village
industry, brought into existence by the Krasnoufimsk
Technical School of the local District Council, or
zemstvo), and especially on the plains sloping towards
the Sea of Azov. About this last region Vice-Consul
Green reported, in 1 894, as follows : " Besides some
eight or ten factories of importance," he wrote, " the
whole of the consular district is now studded with small
engineering works, engaged chiefly in the manufacture
of agricultural machines and implements, most of them
having their own foundries. . . . The town of Ber-
dyansk," he added, " can now boast of the largest reaper
manufactory in Europe, capable of turning out three
thousand machines annually." *

* Report of Vice-Consul Green, The Economist, gth June, 1894 :
" Reapers of a special type, sold at £15 to £17, are durable and go
through more work than eitlier the English or the American reapers "-
In the year 1893, 20,000 reaping machines, 50,000 ploughs, and so on,
were sold in that district only, representing a value of £822,000. Were
it not for the simply prohibitive duties imposed upon foreign pig-iron
(two and a half times its price in the London market), this industry would
have taken a still greater development. But in order to protect the home
iron industry — which consequently continues to cling to obsolete forms

THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES. IS

Moreover the above figures, including only those
manufactures which show a yearly return of more than
;£'200, do not include the immense variety of domestic
trades which also have considerably grown of late, side
by side with the manufactures. The domestic indus-
tries — so characteristic of Russia, and so necessary
under her climate — occupy now more than 7,500,000
peasants, and their aggregate production was estimated
a few years ago at more than the aggregate production
of all the manufactures. It exceeded ;£' 1 80,000,000 per
annum. I shall have an occasion to return later on to
this subject, so that I shall be sober of figures, and
merely say that even in the chief manufacturing pro-
vinces of Russia round about Moscow domestic weaving
■ — for the trade — shows a yearly return of ;£'4, 500,000 ;
and that even in Northern Caucasia, where the petty
trades are of a recent origin, there are, in the peasants'
houses 45,000 looms showing a yearly production of

;£'200,000.

As to the mining industries, notwithstanding over-
protection, and notwithstanding the competition of fuel-
wood and naphtha,* the output of the coal mines of the
Don has doubled during the last ten years, and in Poland
it has increased fourfold. Nearly all steel, three-quarters
of the iron, and two-thirds of the pig-iron used in
Russia are home produce, and the eight Russian works
for the manufacture of steel rails are strong enough to
throw on the market 6,000,000 cwts. of rails every year.t

It is no wonder, therefore, that the imports of manu-
factured goods into Russia are so insignificant, and that

in the Urals — a duty of 6is. a ton of imported pig-iron is levied. The
consequences of this policy for Russian agriculture, railways and State's
budget have lately been discussed in full in a work by A. A. Radzig, The
Iron Industry of the World. St. Petersburg, i8g6 (Russian).

* Out of the 1246 steamers which ply on Russian rivers one-quarter
are heated with naphtha, and one-half with wood ; wood is also the chief
fuel of the railways and ironworks in the Urals,

t See Appendix B.

l6 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

since 1870 — that is, nine years before the general in-
crease of duties — the proportion of manufactured goods
to the aggregate imports has been on a steady decrease.
Manufactured goods make now only one-fifth of the im-
ports ; and while the imports of Britain into Russia
were valued at ;£" 16,300,000 in 1872, they were only
;£"6,884,500 in 1894.* Out of them, manufactured goods
were valued at a little more than ;£'2,ooo,ooo — the re-
mainder being either articles of food or raw and half-
manufactured goods (metals, yarn and so on). In fact,
the imports of British home produce have declined in the
course of ten years from ;£'8,8oo,ooo to ;£"5,ooo,ooo, so
as to reduce the value of British manufactured goods
imported into Russia to the following trifling items :
machinery, ;£'2,Oo6,6oo ; cottons and cotton yarn,
^395.570; woollens and woollen yarn, ;^287,goo; and
so on. But the depreciation of British goods imported
into Russia is still more striking. Thus, in 1876 Russia
imported 8,000,000 cwts. of British metals, and then
paid ;£'6,ooo,ooo ; but in 1 884, although the same quan-
tity was imported, the amount paid was only ;£^3, 400,000.
And the same depreciation is seen for all imported goods,
although not always in the same proportion.

It would be a gross error to imagine that the decline
of foreign imports is mainly due , to high protective
duties. The decline of imports is much better explained
by the growth of home industries. The protective
duties have no doubt contributed (together with other
causes) towards attracting German and English manu-
facturers to Poland and Russia. Lodz — the Manchester
of Poland — is quite a German city, and the Russian
trade directories are full of English and German names.
English and German capitalists, English engineers and
foremen, have planted within Russia the improved cotton
manufactures of their mother countries ; they are busy

* £7.185,185 in 1896.

THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES. 1 7

now in improving the woollen industries and the pro-
duction of machinery; while Belgians are rapidly im-
proving the iron trades in South Russia. There is now
not the slightest doubt — and this opinion is shared, not
only by economists, but also by several Russian manu-
facturers — that a free-trade policy would not check the
further growth of industries in Russia. It would only
reduce the high profits of those manufacturers who do
not improve their factories and chiefly rely upon cheap
labour and long hours.

Moreover, as soon as Russia succeeds in obtaining
more freedom, a further growth of her industries will
immediately follow. Technical education — which,
strange to say, has been systematically suppressed until
lately by the Government — would rapidly grow and
spread ; and in a few years, with her natural resources
and her laborious youth, which even now tries to com-
bine workmanship with science, Russia would soon see
her industrial powers increase tenfold. She fara da si
in the industrial field. She will manufacture all she
needs ; and yet she will remain an agricultural nation.
At present only 1,000,000 of men and women, out of
80,000,000 population of European Russia, work in
manufactures, and 7,500,000 combine agriculture with
manufacturing. This figure may treble without Russia
ceasing to be an agricultural nation ; but if it be trebled,
there will be no room for imported manufactured goods,
because an agricultural country can produce them
cheaper than those countries which live on imported
food.

The same is still more true with regard to other
European nations, much more advanced in their indus-
trial development, and especially with regard to Ger-
many. So much has been written of late about the
competition which Germany offers to British trade, even
in the British markets, and so much can be learned

2

1 8 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

about it from a mere inspection of the London shops,
that I need not enter into lengthy details. Several
articles in reviews ; the correspondence exchanged on
the subject in The Daily Telegraph in August, 1886;
numerous consular reports, regularly summed up in the
leading newspapers, and still more impressive when
consulted in originals ; and, finally, political speeches,
have familiarised the public opinion of this country
with the importance and the powers of German com-
petition* Moreover, the forces which German industry
borrows from the technical training of her workmen,
engineers' and numerous scientific men, have been so
often discussed by the promoters of technical educa-
tion in England that the sudden growth of Germany as
an industrial power can be denied no more.

Where half a century was required in olden times
to develop an industry a few years are sufficient now.
In the year 1864 only 160,000 cwts. of raw cotton
were imported into Germany, and only 16,000 cwts. of
cotton goods were exported ; cotton spinning and weav-
ing were mostly insignificant home industries. Twenty
years later the imports of raw cotton were already
3,600,000 cwts., and in another two years they rose
to 5,556,000 cwts. ; while the exports of cotton stuffs
and yarn were valued at ;6"3,6oo,ooo in 1883, and
;£'7,662,ooo in 1893. A great industry was thus created
in less than thirty years. The necessary technical
skill was developed, and at the present time Germany
remains tributary to Lancashire for the finest sorts of
yarn only. However, Herr Francke believes t that
even this disadvantage will soon be equalised. Very
fine spinning mills have lately been erected, and the

* Many facts in point liave also been collected lately in a little book,
Made xn Germany, by E. E. Williams. Unhappily, the facts relative to
the recent industrial development of Germany are so often used in a
partisan spirit in order to promote protection that their real importance is
often misunderstood.

+ Die neueste Entwickelung der TextU-Industrie in Deutschland

THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES. I9

emancipation from Liverpool, by means of a cotton
exchange established at Bremen, is in fair progress.*

In the woollen trade the number of spindles was
rapidly doubled, and in 1894 the value of the exports
of woollen goods attained ;£'8,220,300, out of which
£g:>7,^6g worth were sent to the United Kingdom.t
The flax industry has grown at a still speedier rate, and
as regards silks Germany, with her 87,000 looms and a
yearly production valued at iTp.ooo.ooo, is second only
to France.

The progress realised in the German chemical trade
is well known, and it is only too badly felt in Scotland
and Northumberland ; wliile the reports on the Ger-
man iron and steel industries which one finds in the
publications of the Iron and Steel Institute and in the
inquiry which was made by the British Iron Trade
Association, show how formidably the production of pig-
iron and of finished iron has grown in Germany for the
last twenty years. (See Appendix C.) No wonder that
the imports of iron and steel into Germany were reduced
by one-half during the same twenty years while the
exports grew nearly four times. As to the machinery
works, if the Germans have committed the error of too
slavishly copying English patterns, instead of taking a
new departure and of creating new patterns, as the
Americans did, we must still recognise that their copies
are good and that they very successfully compete in
cheapness with the tools and machinery produced in this
country. (See Appendix D.) I hardly need mention
the superior make of German scientific apparatus. It
is well known to scientific men, even in France.

In consequence of the above, all imports of manu-

* Cf. Schulze Gawernitz, Der Grossbetrieb, etc. See Appendix E.

t The imports of German woollen stuffs into this country have steadily
grown from ;f 607,444 in i8go to £ijo'j,$6g in 1894. The British exports
to Germany (of stuffs and yarns) were valued at ;£^2,76g,3g2 in 1890 and
£3,017,163 in 1894.

20 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

factured goods into Germany are in decline. The
aggregate imports of textiles (inclusive of yarn) stand so
low as to be compensated by nearly equal values of
exports. And there is no doubt that not only the
German markets for textiles will be soon lost for other
manufacturing countries, but that German competition
will be felt stronger and stronger both in the neutral
markets and those of Western Europe ! One can easily
win applause from uninformed auditories by exclaiming
with more or less pathos that German produce can
never equal the English! The fact is that it competes^
in cheapness, and sometimes also — where it is needed —
in an equally good workmanship ; and this circumstance
is due to many causes.

The " cheap labour " cause, so often alluded to in
discussions about " German competition " which take
place in this country and in France, must be dismissed
by this time, since it has been well proved by so many
recent investigations that low wages and long hours do
not necessarily mean cheap produce. Cheap labour
and protection simply mean the possibility for a number
of employers to continue working with obsolete and
. bad machinery ; but in highly developed staple indus-
) tries, such as the cotton and the iron industries, the
/ cheapest produce is obtained with high wages, short
,, hours and the best machinery. When the number of
\ operatives which is required for each looo spindles can
\ vary from seventeen (in many Russian factories) to
three (in England), no reduction of wages can possibly
compensate for that immense difference. Consequently,
in the best German cotton-mills and iron-works the
wages of the worker (we know it directly for the iron-
works from the above-mentioned inquiry of the British
Iron Trade Association) are not lower than they are in
Great Britain. All that can be said is, that the worker
in Germany gets more for his wages than he gets in this
country — the paradise of the middleman — a paradise

c

THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES. 21

which it will remain so long as it lives chiefly on im-
ported food produce.

The chief reason for the successes of Germany in the
industrial field is the same as it is for the United States.
Both countries just now enter the industrial phase of
their development, and they enter it with all the energy
of youth and novelty. Both countries enjoy a widely-
spread scientifically-technical — or, at least, concrete
scientific — education. In both countries manufactories
are built according to the newest and best models which
have been worked out elsewhere ; and both countries
are in a period of awakening in all branches of activity
— literature and science, industry and trade. They enter
on the same phase in which Great Britain was in the first
half of this century, when British workers invented so
much of the wonderful modern machinery.

We have simply before us a fact of the consecutive
development of nations. And instead of decrying or
opposing it, it would be much better to see whether
the two pioneers of the great industry — Britain and
France — cannot take a new initiative and do something
new again ; whether an issue for the creative genius of
these two nations must not be sought for in a new
direction — namely, the utilisation of both the land and
the industrial powers of man for securing well-being to
the whole nation instead of to the few,

CHAPTER II.

THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES— (continued).

Italy and Spain — India — Japan — The United States — The cotton, wool
and silk trades — The growing necessity for each country to rely
chiefly upon home consumers.

The flow of industrial growths spreads, however, not
only east; it moves also south-east and south. Austria
and Hungary are rapidly gaining ground in the race for
industrial importance. The Triple Alliance has already
been menaced by the growing tendency of Austrian
manufacturers to protect themselves against German
competition ; and even the dual monarchy has recently
seen its two sister nations quarrelling about customs
duties. Austrian industries are a modern growth, and
still they show a yearly return which exceeds
;£^ 1 00,000,000. Bohemia, in a few decades, has grown
to be an industrial country of considerable importance ;
and the excellence and originality of the machinery used
in the newly reformed flour-mills of Hungary show that
the young industry of Hungary is on the right road, not
only to become a competitor to her elder sisters, but
also to add her share to our knowledge as to the use of
the forces of nature. Let me add, by the way, that the
same is true to some extent with regard to Finland.
Figures are wanting as to the present state of the ag-
gregate industries of Austria-Hungary ; but the rela-
tively low imports of manufactured goods are worthy of
note. For British manufacturers Austria-Hungary is,
in fact, no customer worth speaking of; but even with

(22)

THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES. 23

regard to Germany she is rapidly emancipating herself
from her former dependence. (See Appendix F.)

The same industrial progress extends over the
southern peninsulas. Who would have spoken twenty
years ago about Italian manufactures .? And yet — the
Turin Exhibition of 1884 has shown it — Italy ranks now
among the manufacturing countries. " You see every-
where a considerable industrial and commercial effort
made," wrote a French economist to the Temps.
" Italy aspires to go on without foreign produce. The
patriotic watchword is, Italy all by herself! It inspires
the whole mass of producers. There is not a single
manufacturer or tradesman, who, even in the most
trifling circumstances, does not do his best to emanci-
pate himself from foreign guardianship." The best
French and English patterns are imitated and improved
by a touch of national genius and artistic traditions.
Complete statistics are wanting, so that the statistical
Aiinuario resorts to indirect indications. But the rapid
increase of imports of coal (g,ooo,ooo tons in 1896, as
against 779,000 tons in 1871) ; the growth of the mining
industries, which have trebled their production during
the last fifteen years ; the increasing production of steel
and machinery (nearly ;£'3,ooo,ooo in 1886), which- —
to use Bovio's words — shows how a country having no
fuel nor minerals of her own can have nevertheless a
notable metallurgical industry ; and, finally, the growth
of textile industries disclosed by the net imports of raw
cottons and the number of spindles having nearly
doubled within five years * — all these show that the
tendency towards becoming a manufacturing country
capable of satisfying her needs by her own manufac-
tures is not a mere dream. As to the efforts made for

* The net imports of raw cotton reached 291,680 quintals in 1880, and
594,1 iS in 1885. Number of spindles 1,800,000 in 18S5, as against
1,000,000 in 1877. The whole industry has grown up since 1859. Net
imports of pig-iron from 700,000 to 800,000 quintals during the five years
1881 to 1885.

24 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

taking a more lively part in the trade of the world,
who does not know the traditional capacities of the
Italians in that direction ?

I ought also to mention Spain, whose textile, mmmg
and metallurgical industries are rapidly growing; but
I hasten to go over to countries which a few years ago
were considered as eternal and obligatory customers
to the manufacturing nations of Western Europe. Let
us take, for instance, Brazil Was it not doomed by
economists to grow cotton, to export it in a raw state,
and to receive cotton goods in exchange ? Twenty
years ago its nine miserable manufactories could boast
only of an aggregate of 385 spindles. But already in
1887 there were in Brazil 46 cotton manufactories, and
five of them had already 40,000 spindles ; while alto-
gether their nearly 10,000 looms threw every year on
the Brazilian markets more than 33,000,000 yards of
cotton stuffs. Nay, even Vera Cruz, in Mexico, under
the protection of customs officers, has begun to
manufacture cottons, and boasted in 1887 its 40,200
spindles, 287,700 pieces of cotton cloth, and 212,000 lb.
of yarn. Since that year progress has been steady, and
in 1894 Vice-Consul Chapman reported that some of
the finest machines are to be found at the Orizaba
spinning mills, while " cotton prints,'' he wrote, " are
now turned out as good if not superior to the imported
article " *

The flattest contradiction to the export theory has,
however, been given by India. She was always con-
sidered as the surest customer for British cottons, and
so she has been until now. Out of the total of cotton
goods exported from Britain she used to buy more than
one-quarter, very nearly one-third (from ;£" 17,000,000

* The Economist, 12th. May, 1894, p. 9 : "A few years ago the Orizaba
mills used entirely imported raw cotton ; but now they use home-grown
and home-spun cotton as much as possible ".

THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES. 25

to ;£'2 2,000,000, out of an aggregate of about
;£^75,ooo,ooo in the last decade, and from ;£'i6,ioo,ooo
to ;£■ 1 8,242,000 during the years 1893 and 1894). But
things have begun to change. The Indian cotton
manufactures, which — for some causes not fully ex-
plained — were so unsuccessful at their beginnings, sud-
denly took firm root.

In i860 they consumed only 23,000,000 lb. of raw
cotton, but the quantity was nearly four times as much
in 1887, and it trebled again within the next ten years :
283,000,000 lb. of raw cotton were used in 1887-88.
The number of cotton mills grew up from 40 in 1877
to 147 in 1895; the number of spindles rose from
886,100 to 3,844,300 in the same years; and where
57,188 workers were employed in 1887, we find, seven
years later, 146,240 operatives ; while the capital en-
gaged in cotton mills and presses by joint-stock com-
panies rose from 7,000,000 tens of rupees in 1882 to
14,600,000 in 1895.* As for the quality of the mills, the
blue-books praise them ; the German chambers of com-
merce state that the best spinning mills in Bombay " do
not now stand far behind the best German ones " ; and
two great authorities in the cotton industry, Mr. James
Piatt and Mr. Henry Lee, agree in saying " that in no
other country of the earth except in Lancashire do the
operatives possess such a natural leaning to the textile
industry as in India ".t

The exports of cotton twist from India more than
doubled in five years (1882-1887), and already in 1887
we could read in the Statement (p. 62) that " what
cotton twist was imported was less and less of the
coarser and even medium kind, which indicates that the
Indian (spinning) mills are gradually gaining hold of
the home markets". Consequently, while India con-

* Ten rupees are, as is known, nearly equal to £1 sterling,
t Schulze Gawernitz, The Cotton Trade, etc., p. 123.

26 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

tinued to import nearly the same amount of British
cotton goods (sHghtly reduced since), she threw already
then (in 1887) on the foreign markets no less than
;£"3.635,5io worth of her own cottons of Lancashire
patterns; she exported 33,000,000 yards of grey cotton
piece goods manufactured in India with Indian work-
men. And the export has continued to grow since, so
that in the years 1891-93, 73,000,000 to 80,000,000
yards of cotton piece goods were exported,* as well as
from 161,000,000 to 189,000,000 lb. of yarn. Finally,
in 1897, the value of the yams and textiles exported
reached the respectable figure of 14,073,600 tens of
rupees.

The jute factories in India have grown at a still
speedier rate,t and the once flourishing jute trade of
Dundee was brought to decay, not only by the high
tariffs of continental powers, but also by Indian com-
petition. Even woollen mills have lately been started,
while the iron industry took a sudden development in
India, since the means were found, after many experi-
ments and failures, to work furnaces with local coal. In
a few years, we are told by specialists, India will be self-
supporting for iron. Nay, it is not without apprehen-
sion that the English manufacturers see that the imports
of Indian manufactured textiles to this country are
steadily growing, while in the markets of the Far East
and Africa India becomes a serious competitor to the
mother country. But why should she not ? What
might prevent the growth of Indian manufactures ? Is

' 312,000 bales were exported to China and Japan in 1893, instead of
112,100 bales ten years before.

+ In 1882 they had 5633 looms and 95,937 spindles. Two years later
(1884-85) they had already 6926 looms and 131,740 spindles, giving occu-
pation to 51,900 persons. Now, or rather in 1895, the twenty-eight
jute mills of India have 10,580 looms and 216,140 spindles (doubled in
twelve years) and they employ a daily average number of 78,889 persons.
The progress realised in the machinery is best seen from these figures.
The exports of jute stuffs from India were £1,543,870 in 1884-85 and
£5,213,900 in 1895. (See Appendix H.)

THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES. 27

it the want of capital ? But capital knows no father-
land ; and if high profits can be derived from the work
of Indian coolies whose wages are only one-half of those
of English workmen, or even less, capital will migrate
to India, as it has gone to Russia, although its migration
may mean starvation for Lancashire and Dundee. Is
it the want of knowledge ? But longitudes and latitudes
are no obstacle to its spreading ; it is only the first steps
that are difficult. As to the superiority of workmanship,
nobody who knows the Hindoo worker will doubt about
his capacities. Surely they are not below those of the
86,500 children less than thirteen years of age, or the*
363,000 boys and girls less than eighteen years old, who
are employed in the British textile manufactories.*

Ten years surely are not much in the life of nations.
And yet within the last ten years another powerful
competitor has grown in the East. I mean Japan.
In October, 1888, the Textile Recorder mentioned in
a few lines that the annual production of yarns in the
cotton mills of Japan had attained 9,498,500 lb., and
that fifteen more mills, which would hold 156,100
spindles, were in course of erection.! Two years later,
25,000,000 lb. of yarn were spun in Japan; and while
in 1886-88 Japan imported five or six times as much
yarn from abroad as was spun at home, next year two-
thirds only of the total consumption of the country were
imported from abroad. + From that date the production

* The number of boys above thirteen but under- eighteen, working full
time, was, in the year i8go, 86,gg8. The number of girls of that age is
not given ; they are considered as " women," and work full time. But
the proportion of women to men being as two to one in the textile
factories of the United Kingdom, the number of girls of that age (thirteen
to eighteen) may be taken as twice the number of boys, that is, about
igo.ooo. This would give a total of at least 363,000 boys and girls less
than eighteen years of age, out of a total of 1,084,630 operatives employed
in all the textile trades of the United Kingdom. More than one-third.
{Statesman's Year-book for i8g8, p. 75.)

t Textile Recorder, 15th October, 1888.

J 17,778,000 kilogrammes of yarn were imported in 1886 as against
2,gig,ooo kilogrammes of home-spun yarn. In i88g the figures were:
25,687,000 kilogrammes imported and 12,160,000 kilogrammes home-spun.

28 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

grew up regularly. From 6,503,300 lb. in 1886, it
reached 91,950,000 lb. in 1893, and 153,444,000 lb. in
1895. In nine years it had thus increased twenty-four
times. The total production of tissues, valued at
;£^ 1, 200,000 in the year 1887, rapidly rose to ;£^ 14,2 70,000
in 1895 — cottons entering into the amount to the extent
of nearly two-fifths. Consequently, the imports of
foreign cotton goods from Europe fell from ;£^ 1,640,000
in 1884 to ;£'84g,6oo in 1895, while the exports of silk
goods rose to ;£^3, 246,000. Moreover, the coal and iron
industries grow so rapidly that Japan will not long
remain a tributary to Europe for iron goods ; nay, the
ambition of the Japanese is to have their own shif>-
building yards, and last summer 300 engineers left the
Elswick works of Mr. Armstrong in order to start ship-
building in Japan. But they were engaged for five years
only. In five years the Japanese expect to have learned
enough to be their own shipbuilders.* As to such plain
things as matches, the industry, after its failure in 1884,
has risen again, and in 1895 the Japanese exported over
15,000,000 gross of matches valued at ;£^i, 246,550.

All this shows that the much-dreaded invasion of
the East upon European markets is in rapid progress.
The Chinese slumber still; but I am firmly persuaded
from what I saw of China, that the moment they will
begin to manufacture with the aid of European ma-
chinery — ^and the first steps have already been made —
they will do it with more success, and necessarily on a
far greater scale, than even the Japanese.

But what about the United States, which cannot be
accused of employing cheap labour or of sending to
Europe " cheap and nasty " produce ? Their great

* The mining industry has grown as follows : Copper extracted : 2407
tons in 1875; 11,064 in 1887. Coal: 567,200 tons in 1S75 ; 1,669,700
twelve years later ; 4,259,000 in 1894. Iron ; 3447 tons in 1S75 ; 15,268
in 1887 ; over 20,000 in 1894. (K. Rathgen, y.jpans Volkuirthschaft
uttd StaaUhaushaltung, Leipzig, iSgi ; Consular Reports.)

niK l»KOl M l"R,\MS.\r\0\ OK INPl'STKll'S. Jo

iuilustiy is ut \ostoi\la\''s vlvilo ; aiul \ ot tt\c Stalos al-
ready souil to old l'"un,>po (.'on^tautly iuoioasini;- qium
titios of wiachuK-iv, while this \oar tho\' Ih\l;\u> cvon to
soud ii'on. In tlie rouiso ot twenty ye>\rs (lS"'i.'>-ixi~)
the number ot persons eiuplo\ed in the Ameriean
nianuiaetiues has luoie th.m doubled, anvl the value ot
then' proiluee has nearK trebleil* The eotton industry,
supplied with e\eellent iKinic-nKule uiaehmery.t is
rapidly developinj^', and the exports ot eottons ot do-
niestie manufaetun:^ ,itt,iineil list \ear about i. -\Si.\\i.\\\
As to the \earK output ot pij;' iron and steel, it is already
in exeess ot the yearl\ ovitput in Initain,* and the
or^anis,Uion ot that industry is also superior, as Mr,
lierkU-\ pointed out in November, u'^oi. u> his address
to the Institute of (."ivil lCni:;ineersJJ

Ihit all this has i;rowu almost entiivly withm the
last t\vei\t\ or thirtv- \ears whole industries havmj^'
been eivated entnelv sinee iSiw || What will, then,
Auienean industr\ be twenty years henee, aidcxl as it
IS bv a wondertul i.le\ elopment t.>f teehuieal skill, bv
e\ev-llent sehools, a seientitie cxhieation whteh j^oes hand
in hand with teehnuwl evlueation, and ,i spirit of enter
prise whieh is unrivalled m ICiuvpe?

X'ohmies luive been written about the erisis of iS8(^-
S\ u ensis wheh, to use the wouls of the Tarliamont-
arv Oonmiission, lasted siiuv iS;;, with but "u sliort

iSvj^v VaIuc 01 (nvHtin.x; s.,;S>,Sin.v\v^ dolLus in iS-v\ iud v).,;--.\4!~.-^~»
JoU.us in iS.N-. VMttv (>u\luv'f,ou (-ci t>,f.;vi of wv-ikcis: iC-jS doH.us in
iS o, .(nd voSv) klolUvs lu iS^jv-,

J U wus fvvni ;,j^-,.o-o tv-- o.Su.o.v torts ot' (nj;-iuH< Jvaius; (hf \f.us
»Si,^^<>4 ; 4,ovi,,o^> tons of " tVssfUtfi .u'.d >.~l.(p('-CiufKths suvl" w^re
obt.uur\l in >S\^\

!(■■ Ths- la»s;cst out'(-,u of one M.it-t imn.VvX- in lutat Imu.ui\ vUvs uot
f\oWvl 75v> tvnis in ihf w«-'n. wht'c u\ Anu". w-.( it had uMOh^sl -wv tOJ<s"
(y.ti\'.. »9tt» Nov., iS^ji. (>. 05).

lvJ:^ii-i.s, Nrvv \oji- and I oudou". iSS4. f, in, t can W htj;ht\
itwmmnsd this little woirk t\> thi.-'sc tntri'rsts\t in the question.

30 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

period of prosperity enjoyed by certain branches of
trade in the years 1880 to 1883," and a crisis, I shall
add, which extended over all the chief manufacturing
countries of the world. All possible causes of the crisis
have been examined; but, whatever the cacophony of
conclusions arrived at, all unanimously agreed upon one,
namely, that of the Parliamentary Commission, which
could be summed up as follows : " The manufacturing
countries do not find such customers as would enable
\ them to realise high profits ". Profits_ being the basis
I of capitalist industry, low ^trnfits., e xplain all ulterior
\ c5nse£uences^__Low profits induce the employers to
Areduce the wages, or the number of workers, or the num-
I ber of days of employment during the week, or eventu-
ally compel them to resort to the manufacture of lower
1 kinds of goods, which, as a rule, are paid worse than
\the higher sorts. As Adam Smith said, low profits
mltimately mean a reduction of wages, and low wages
Imean a reduced consumption by the worker. Low
profits mean also a somewhat reduced consumption by
/the employer ; and both together mean lower profits
and reduced consumption with that immense class of
middlemen which has grown up in manufacturing
countries, and that, again, means a further reduction of
profits for the employers.

A country which manufactures chiefly for export,
and therefore fives chiefly on the profits derived from
her foreign trade, stands very much in the same posi-
tion as Switzerland, which lives to a great extent on the
profits derived from the foreigners who visit her lakes
and glaciers. A good " season " means an influx of from,
;£^ 1,000,000 to ;£^2,ooo,ooo of money imported by the
tourists, and a bad " season " has the effects of a bad
crop in an agricultural country : a general impoverish-
ment follows. So it is also with a country which manu-
factures for export. If the "' season " is bad, and the
exported goods cannot be sold abroad for twice their

THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES. 3 1

value at home, the country which hves chiefly on these
bargains suffers. Low profits for the innkeepers of
the Alps mean narrowed circumstances in large parts
of Switzerland ; and low profits for the Lancashire and
Scotch manufacturers, and the wholesale exporters,
mean narrowed circumstances in Great Britain. The
cause is the same in both cases.

For many decades past we had not seen such a
cheapness of wheat and manufactured goods as we saw
lately, and yet the country was suffering from a crisis.
People said, of course, that the cause of the crisis was
over-production. But over-production is a word utterly
devoid of sense if it does not mean that those who are
in need of all kinds of produce have not the means for
buying them with their low wages. Nobody would
dare to affirm that there is too much furniture in the
crippled cottages, too many bedsteads and bedclothes
in the workmen's dwellings, too many lamps burning
in the huts, and too much cloth on the shoulders, not
only of those who used to sleep (in 1886) in Trafalgar
Square between two newspapers, but even in those
households where a silk hat makes a part of the Sunday
dress. And nobody will dare to affirm that there is too
much food in the homes of those agricultural labourers
who earn twelve shillings a week, or of those women
who earn from fivepence to sixpence a day in the cloth-
ing trade and other small industries which swarm in the
outskirts of all great cities. Over-production means
merely and simply a want of purchasing powers amidst
the workers. And the same want of purchasing powers
of the workers was felt everywhere on the Continent
during the years i885-87'.

After the bad years were over a sudden revival of
international trade took place ; and, as the British
exports rose in four years (1886 to 1890) by nearly 24
per cent., it began to be said that there was no reason
for being alarmed by foreign competition ; that the

32

FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

decline of exports in 1885-87 was only temporary, and
general in Europe ; and that England, now as of old,
fully maintained her dominant position in the inter-
national trade. It is certainly true that if we consider
exclusively the money value of the exports for the years
1876 to 189s, we see no permanent decline, we notice
only fluctuations. British exports, like commerce alto-
gether, seem to show a certain periodicity. They fell
from ;£'20 1, 000,000 sterhng in 1876 to i^" 192,000,000 in
1879 ; then they rose again to ^^241,000,000 in 1882, and
fell down to ;£^2 13,000,000 in 1886; again they rose to
;£^264,ooo,ooo in 1890, but fell again, reaching a mini-
mum of ;^2 1 6,000,000 in 1894, to be followed next year
by a slight movement upwards.

This periodicity being a fact, Mr. Giffen could make
light of " German competition " by showing that exports
from the United Kingdom had not decreased. It can
even be said that, per head of population, they have
remained what they were twenty years ago, notwith-
standing all fluctuations.* However, when we come to
consider the quantities exported, and compare them
with the money values of the exports, even Mr. Giffen
must acknowledge that the prices of 1883 were so low
in comparison with those of 1873 that in order to reach
the same money value the United Kingdom would have
had to export four pieces of cotton instead of three, and
eight or ten tons of metallic goods instead of six. " The
aggregate of British foreign trade, if valued at the
prices of ten years previously, would have amounted

* Per head of population they appear, in shillings, as follows :-

1876

. I2IS,

1886

1877

. irgs.

1887

1878

. 114S.

1888

1879

. 112&.

1889

1880

. 129s.

1890

I88I

. 134s.

1891

1882

• 137s.

1892

1883

• 135s.

1893

1884

. 130S.

1894

1885

. ii8s.

1895

nrs.
121S.
127s.
134s.
141S.
131S.
119s.
114s.

Ills.

II2S.

THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES. 33

to ^861,000,000 instead of ;£^667,ooo,ooo," we were told
by no less an authority than the Commission on Trade
Depression.

It might, however, be said that 1873 was an ex-
ceptional year, owing to the inflated demand which took
place after the Franco-German war. But the same
downward movement continues. In fact, if we take the
figures given in the last Statesman's Year-book, we see
that while the United Kingdom exported, in 1883,
4,957,000,000 yards of piece goods (cotton, woollen and
linen) and 316,000,000 lb. of yarn in order to reach an
export value of .-^104,500,000, the same country had
to export, in 1895, no less than 5,478,000,000 yards of
the same stuffs and 330,000,000 lb. of yarn in order to
realise ;£'gg,7oo,ooo only. As to the year 1894, which
was a minimum year, the proportion was even still
worse. And it would appear still worse again if we took
the cottons alone, or made a comparison with the year
i860, when 2,776,000,000 yards of cotton cloth and
197,000,000 lb. of cotton yarn were valued at
;£' 5 2,000,000, while thirty- five years later almost twice
as many million yards (5,033,000,000) cind 252,000,000
lb. of yarn were required to make up ;^68,300,000.*
And we must not forget that one-half (in value) of
British and Irish exports is made up by textiles.

We thus see that while the total value of the exports
from the United Kingdom remains, broadly speaking,
unaltered for the last twenty years, the high prices
which could be got for these exports twenty years ago,
and with them the high profits, are irretrievably gone.
And no amount of arithmetical calculations will persuade
the British manufacturers that such is not the case.
They know perfectly well that the home markets grow
continually overstocked ; that the best foreign markets
are escaping ; and that in the neutral markets Britain

* statesman's Year-book, 1896, p. 78.

3

34 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

is being undersold. This is the unavoidable conse-
quence of the development of manufactures all over the
world. (See Appendix G.)

Great hopes are now laid in Australia as a market
for British goods ; but Australia will soon do what
Canada already does. She will manufacture. And the
last colonial exhibition, by showing to the " colonists "
what they are able to do, and how they must do,
will only have accelerated the day when each colony
fara da si in her turn. Canada and India already im-
pose protective duties on British goods. As to the
much-spoken-of markets on the Congo, and Mr. Stanley's
calculations and promises of a trade amounting to
;^26,ooo,ooo a year if the Lancashire people supply the
Africans with loin-cloths, such promises belong to the
same category of fancies as the famous nightcaps of the
Chinese which were to enrich England after the
Chinese war. The Chinese prefer their own home-made
nightcaps ; and as to the Congo people, four countries
at least are already competing for supplying them with
their poor dress : Britain, Germany, the United States,
and, last but not least, India.

There was a time when this country had almost the
monopoly in the cotton industries ; but about 1 880 she
possessed only 55 per cent, of all the spindles at work
in Europe, the United States and India (40,000,000
out of 72,000,000), and a little more than one-half of the
looms (550,000 out of 972,000). In 1893 the proportion
was still further reduced to 41 per cent, of the spindles
(45,300,000 out of 91,340,000).* She was thus losing
ground while the others were winning. And the fact
is quite natural : it might have been foreseen. There
is no reason why Britain should always be the great
cotton manufactory of the world, when raw cotton has
to be imported into this country as elsewhere. It was

* The Economist, 13th January, 1894.

THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES. 35

quite natural that France, Germany, Italy, Russia, India,
Japan, the United States, and even Mexico and Brazil,
should begin to spin their own yarns and to weave their
own cotton stuffs. But the appearance of the cotton
industry in a country, or in fact, of any textile in-
dustry, unavoidably becomes the starting-point for the
growth of a series of other industries; chemical and
mechanical works, metallurgy and mining feel at once
the impetus given by a new want. The whole of the
home industries, as also technical education altogether,
must improve in order to satisfy that want as soon as
it has been felt.

What has happened with regard to cottons is going
on also with regard to other industries. Britain and
Belgium have no longer the monopoly of the woollen
trade. Immense factories at Verviers are silent ; the
Belgian weavers are misery-stricken, while Germany
yearly increases her production of woollens, and exports
nine times more woollens than Belgium. Austria has
her own woollens and exports them; Riga, Lodz, and
Moscow supply Russia with fine woollen cloths ; and
the growth of the woollen industry in each of the last-
named countries calls into existence hundreds of con-
nected trades.

For many years France has had the monopoly of
the silk trade. Silkworms being reared in Southern
France, it was quite natural that Lyons should grow
into a centre for the manufacture of silks. Spinning,
domestic weaving, and dyeing works developed to a
great extent. But eventually the industry took such a
development that home supplies of raw silk became
insufficient, and raw silk was imported from Italy, Spain
and Southern Austria, Asia Minor, the Caucasus and
Japan, to the amount of from ;£^g,ooo,ooo to ;£" 11,000,000
in 1875 and 1876, while France had only ;£'8oo,ooo worth
of her own silk. Thousands of peasant boys and girls

36 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

were attracted by high wages to Lyons and the neigh-
bouring district ; the industry was prosperous. How-
ever, by-and-by new centres of silk trade grew up at
Basel and in the peasant houses around Zurich. French
emigrants imported the trade, and it developed, especi-
ally after the civil war of 1871. The Caucasus
Administration invited French workmen and women
from Lyons and Marseilles to teach the Georgians and
the Russians the best means of rearing the silkworm,
as well as the whole of the silk trade, and Stavropol
became a new centre for silk weaving. Austria and the
United States did the same ; and what are now the
results.'' During the years 1872 to 1881 Switzerland
more than doubled the produce of her silk industry;
Italy and Germany increased it by one-third ; and the
Lyons region, which formerly manufactured to the value
of 454,000,000 francs a year, showed in 1887 a return
of only 378,000,000. The exports of Lyons silks, which
reached an average of 425,000,000 francs in 1855-59,
and 460,000,000 in 1870-74, fell down to 233,000,000
in 1887. And it is reckoned by French specialists that
at present no less than one-third of the silk stuffs used
in France are imported from Ziirich, Crefeld, and Bar-
men. Nay, even Italy, which had 2,000,000 spindles and
30,000 looms in 1880 (as against 14,000 in 1870), sends
her silks to France and competes with Lyons. The
French manufacturers may cry as loudly as they like
for protection, or resort to the production of cheaper
goods of lower quality; they may sell 3,250,000 kilo-
grarrmies of silk stuffs at the same price as they sold
2,500,000 in 1855-59 — they will never again regain the
position they occupied before. Italy, Switzerland,
Germany, the United States and Russia have their own
silk factories and will import from Lyons only the
highest qualities of stuffs. As to the lower sorts, a
foulard has become a common attire with the St.
Petersburg housemaids, because the North Caucasian

THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES. 37

domestic trades supply them at a price which would
starve the Lyons weavers. The trade has been decen-
tralised, and while Lyons is still a centre for the higher
artistic silks, it will never be again the chief centre for
the silk trade which it was thirty years ago.

Like examples could be produced by the score.
Greenock no longer supplies Russia with sugar, because
Russia has plenty of her own at the same price as it
sells at in England. The watch trade is no more a
speciality of Switzerland : watches are now made
everywhere. India extracts from her ninety collieries
two-thirds of her annual consumption of coal. The
chemical trade which grew up on the banks of the
Clyde and Tyne owing to the special advantages offered
for the import of Spanish pyrites and the agglomera-
tion of such a variety of industries along the two estu-
aries is now in decay. Spain, with the help of English
capital, is beginning to utilise her own pyrites for
herself ; and Germany has become a great centre for the
manufacture of sulphuric acid and soda — nay, she
already complains about over-production.

But enough! I have before me so many figures,
all telling the same tale, that examples could be multi-
plied at will. It is time to conclude, and, for every
unprejudiced mind, the conclusion is self-evident.
Industries of all kinds decentralise and are scattered
all over the globe ; and everywhere a variety, an inte-
grated variety, of trades grows, instead of specialisa-
tion. Such are the prominent features of the times
we live in. Each nation becomes in its turn a manu-
facturing nation ; and the time is not far off when
each nation of Europe, as well as the United States,
and even the most backward nations of Asia and
America, will themselves manufacture nearly every-
thing they are in need of. Wars and several accidental
causes may check for some time the scattering of in-

38 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

dustries : they will not stop it ; it is unavoidable. For
each new-comer the first steps only are difficult. But,
as soon as any industry has taken firm root, it calls into
existence hundreds of other trades ; and as soon as the
first steps have been made, and the first obstacles have
been overcome, the industrial growth goes on at an
accelerated rate.

The fact is so well felt, if not understood, that the
race for colonies has become the distinctive feature of
the last twenty years. Each nation will have her own
colonies. But colonies will not help. There is not
a second India in the world, and the old conditions
will be repeated no more. Nay, some of the British
colonies already threaten to become serious competitors
with their mother country ; others, like Australia, will
not fail to follow the same lines. As to the yet neutral
niar!".ets, China will never be a serious customer to
Europe : she can produce much cheaper at home ; and
when she begins to feel a need for goods of European
patterns she will produce them herself. Woe to Europe
if the day that the steam engine invades China she is
still relying on foreign customers! As to the African
half-savages, their misery is no foundation for the well-
being of a civilised nation.

Progress is in another direction. It is in producing
for home use. The customers for the Lancashire cot-
tons and the Sheffield cutlery, the Lyons silks and the
Hungarian flour-mills, are not in India nor in Africa.
They are amidst the home producers. No use to send
floating shops to New Guinea with German or British
millinery when there are plenty of would-be customers
for British millinery in these very islands, and for
German goods in Germany. And, instead of worrying
our brains by schemes for getting customers abroad,
it would be better to try to answer the following
questions : Why the British worker, whose industrial
capacities are so highly praised in political speeches;

THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES. 39

why the Scotch crofter and the Irish peasant, whose
obstinate labours in creating new productive soil out of
peat bogs are occasionally so much spoken of, are no
customers to the Lancashire weavers, the Sheffield
cutlers and the Northumbrian and Welsh pitmen ? Whj
the Lyons weavers not only do not wear silks, but
sometimes have no food in their attics ? Why the
Russian peasants sell their corn, and for four, six, and
sometimes eight months every year are compelled to
mix bai'k and auroch grass to a handful of flour for
baking their bread? Why famines are so common
amidst the growers of wheat and rice in India ?

Under the present conditions of division into capi-
talists and labourers, into property-holders and masses
living on uncertain wages, the spreading of industries
over new fields is accompanied by the very same hor-
rible facts of pitiless oppression, massacre of children,
pauperism, and insecurity of life. The Russian Fabrics
Inspector's Reports, the Reports of the Plauen Handels-
kammer, and the Italian inquests are full of the same
revelations as the Reports of the Parliamentary Com-
missions of 1840 to 1842, or the modern revelations
with regard to the " sweating system " at Whitechapel
and Glasgow, and London pauperism. The Capital and
Labour problem is thus universalised ; but, at the same
time, it is also simplified. To return to a state of
affairs where corn is grown, and manufactured goods are
fabricated, for the use of those very people who grow
and produce them — such will be, no doubt, the problem
to be solved during the next coming years of European
history. Each region will become its own producer
and its own consumer of manufactured goods. But
that unavoidably implies that, at the same time, it will
be its own producer and consumer of agricultural pro-
duce ; and that is precisely what I am going to discuss
next.

CHAPTER III.

THE POSSIBILITIES Ol' ACiRICULTURIC.

The development of agriculture— Over-population prejudice— Can the
Boil of Great Britam feed ita inhauitanta ? — British agriculture—
Compared v/ith agricuUuie in I'rance ; in Belgium — Market garden-
ing ; its achievements — Is it profitable to grow wheal in Great
Britain? — American agriculture: intensive culUire in the States.

The industrial and commercial history of the world
during the last thirty years has been a history of de-
centralisation of industry. U was not w mere shifting
of the centre of gravity of commerce, such as Europe
has witnessed in the past, when the commercial hege-
mony migrated from. Italy to Spain, to Holland, and
finally to Britain -. it had a much deeper meaning, as
it excluded the very possibility of commercial or indus-
trial hegemony. It has shown the growth of quite new
conditions, and new conditions require new adaptations.
To endeavour to revive the iw,sl would be useless : a new
departure must be taken by civilised nations.

Of course, there will be plenty of voices to argue
that the former supremacy of the pioneers must be
maintained at any price : all pioneers are in the habit
of saying so. It will be suggested th;il the pioneers
must attain such a superiority of technical knowledge
and organisation as to enable them to bent all their
younger competitors ; that force must be resorted to
if necessary. Hut force is reciprocnl ; ;ind if llie god
of war always sides with the .strongest battalions, those
battalions are strongest which fighl. for new rights

(40)

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 41

against outgrown privileges. As to the honest longing
for more technical education — surely let us all have as
much of it as possible : it will be a boon for humanity ;
for humanity, of course — not for a single nation, because
knowledge cannot be cultivated for home use only.
Knowledge and invention, boldness of thought and
enterprise, conquests of genius and improvements of
social organisation have become international growths ;
and no kind of progress — intellectual, industrial or social
— can be kept within political boundaries ; it crosses
the seas, it pierces the mountains ; steppes are no ob-
stacle to it. Knowledge and inventive powers are now
so thoroughly international that if a simple newspaper
paragraph announces to-morrow that the problem of
storing force, of printing without inking, or of aerial
navigation, has received a practical solution in one
country of the world, we may feel sure that within a few
weeks the same problem will be solved, almost in the
same way, by several inventors of different nationalities.
Continually we learn that the same scientific discovery,
or technical invention, has been made within a few days'
distance, in countries a thousand miles apart ; as if
there were a kind of atmosphere which favours the ger-
mination of a given idea at a given moment. And such
an atmosphere exists : steam, print and the common
stock of knowledge have created it.

Those who dream of monopolising technical genius
are therefore fifty years behind the times. The world
— ^the wide, wide world — is now the true domain of
knowledge ; and if each nation displays some special
capacities in some special branch, the various capa-
cities of different nations compensate one another, and
the advantages which could be derived from them would
be only temporary. The fine British workmanship in
mechanical arts, the American boldness for gigantic
enterprise, the French systematic mind, and the Ger-
man pedagogy, are becoming international capacities.

42 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

Sir William Armstrong in his Italian and Japanese
workshops communicates to Italians and Japanese those
capacities for managing huge iron masses which have
been nurtured on the Tyne ; the uproarious American
spirit of enterprise pervades the Old World ; the French
taste for harmony becomes European taste ; and Ger-
man pedagogy — improved, I dare say — is at home in
Russia. So, instead of trying to keep life in the old
channels, it would be better to see what the new condi-
tions are, what duties they impose on our generation.

The characters' of the new conditions are plain, and
their consequences are easy to understand. As the
manufacturing nations of West Europe are meeting
with steadily growing difficulties in selling their manu-
factured goods abroad, and getting food in exchange,
they will be compelled to grow their food at home ;
they will be bound to rely on home customers for their
manufactures, and on home producers for their food.
And the sooner they do so the better.

Two great objections stand, however, in the way
against the general acceptance of such conclusions. We
have been taught, both by economists and politicians,
that the territories of the West European States are so
overcrowded with inhabitants that they cannot grow
all the food and raw produce which are necessary for
the maintenance of their steadily increasing populations.
Therefore the necessity of exporting manufactured goods
and of importing food. And we are told, moreover,
that even if it were possible to grow in Western Europe
all the food necessary for its inhabitants, there would
be no advantage in doing so as long as the same food
can be got cheaper from abroad. Such are the present
teachings and the ideas which are current in society at
large. And yet it is easy to prove that both are totally
erroneous : plenty of food could be grown on the terri-
tories of Western Europe for much more than their
present populations, and an immense benefit would be

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 43

derived from doing so. These are the two points which
I have now to discuss.

To begin by taking the most disadvantageous case :
is it possible that the soil of Great Britain, which at
present yields food for one-third only of its inhabit-
ants, could provide all the necessary amount and
variety of food for 33,000,000 human beings when it
covers only 56,000,000 acres all told — forests and rocks,
marshes and peat-bogs, cities, railways and fields — out
of which only 33,000,000 acres are considered as cultiv-
able ? * The current opinion is, that it by no means
can ; and that opinion is so inveterate that we even see
men of science, who are generally cautious when dealing
with current opinions, endorse that opinion without even
taking the trouble of verifying it. It is accepted as an
axiom. And yet, as soon as we try to find out any
argument in its favour, we discover that it has not the
slightest foundation, either in facts or in judgment upon
well-known facts.

Let us take, for instance, J. B. Lawes' estimates of
crops which are published every year in The Times.
In his estimate of the year 1887 he made the remark
that during the eight harvest years 185 3- 1860 "nearly
three-fourths of the aggregate amount of wheat con-
sumed in the United Kingdom was of home growth,
and little more than one-fourth was derived from foreign
sources " ; but five and twenty years later the figures
were almost reversed, that is, " during the eight years
1879-1886, little more than one- third has been provided
by home crops and nearly two-thirds by imports ".
But neither the increase of population by 8,000,000
nor the increase of consumption of wheat by six-tenths

* Twenty-three per cent, of the total area of England, 40 per cent, in
Wales, and 75 per cent, in Scotland are now under wood, coppice,
mountain, heath, water, etc. The remainder, i.e., 32,777,513 acres, which
are either under culture or under permanent pasture, may be taken as the
" cultivable " area of Great Britain.

44 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

of a bushel per head could account for the change.
In the years 1853-60 the soil of Britain nourished one
inhabitant on every two acres cultivated, why did it
require three acres in order to nourish the same inhabit-
ant in 1887? The answer is plain: merely and simply
because agriculture had fallen into neglect

In fact, the area under wheat had been reduced
since 1853-60 by full 1,590,000 acres, and therefore
the average crop of the years 1883-86 was below the
average crop of 1853-60 by more than 40,000,000
bushels ; and this deficit alone represented the food of
more than 7,000,000 inhabitants. At the same time
the area under barley, oats, beans, and other spring
crops had also been reduced by a further 560,000 acres,
which, at the low average of thirty bushels per acre,
would have represented the cereals necessary to com-
plete the above for the same 7,000,000 inhabitants.
And it could be said that if the United Kingdom
imported cereals for 17,000,000 inhabitants in 1887,
instead of for 10,000,000 in i860, it was simply because
more than 2,000,000 acres had gone out of cultivation.*
These facts are well known ; but usually they are met
with the remark that the character of agriculture had
been altered : that instead of growing wheat, meat and
milk were produced in this country. However, the
figures for 1887, compared with the figures for i860,
show that the same downward movement also took place
under the heads of green crops and the like. The area
under potatoes was reduced by 280,000 acres ; under
turnips by 1 80,000 acres ; and although there was an

" Average area under wheat in 1853-60, 4,092,160 acres ; average
crop, 14,310,779 quarters. Average area under wheat in 1884-87,
2,509,055 acres ; average crop (good years), 9,198,956 quarters. See
Professor W. Fream's Rothamstcad Experiments (London, 1888), page
83. I take in the above Sir John Lawes' figure of 5^65 bushels per head
of population every year. It is very close to the yearly allowance of
5'67 bushels of the French statisticians. The Russian statisticians
reckon S'67 bushels of winter crops (chiefly rye) and 2-5 bushels of spring
crops (sarrazin, barley, etc.).

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 45

increase under the heads of mangold, carrots, etc., still
the aggregate area under all these crops was reduced by
a further 330,000 acres. An increase of area was found
only for permanent pasture (2,800,000 acres) and grass
under rotation (1,600,000 acres); but we should look
in vain for a corresponding increase of live stock. The
increase of live stock which took place during those
twenty-seven years was not sufficient to cover even the
area reclaimed from waste land.*

Since the year 1887 affairs went, however, from
worse to worse. If we take Great Britain alone, we
see that in 1885 the area under all corn crops was
8,392,006 acres; that is very small, indeed, in com-
parison to the area which could have been cultivated ;
but even that little was further reduced to 7,400,227
acres in 1895. The area under wheat was 2,478,318
acres in 1885 (as against 3,630,300 in 1874); but it
dwindled away to 1,417,641 acres in 1895, while the
area under the other cereals increased by a trifle only
— from 5,198,026 acres to 5,462,184 — the total loss
on all cereals being nearly 1,000,000 acres in ten years!
Another 5,000,000 people were thus compelled to get
their food from abroad.

Did the area under green crops increase during
that decade.? Not in the least! It was further
reduced by nearly 300,000 acres (3,521,602 in 1885,
and 3,225,762 in 1895). Or, was the area under clover
and grasses in rotation increased in proportion to all
these reductions .'' Alas, no ! It remained almost
stationary (4,654,173 acres in 1885, and 4,729,801 in
1895). In short, taking all the land that is under crops

* There was an increase of 1,800,000 head of horned cattle, and
a decrease of 4J million sheep (6| millions, if we compare the year 1886
with 1868), which would correspond to an increase of ij million of
units of cattle, because eight sheep are reckoned as equivalent to one
head of horned cattle. But five million acres having been reclaimed
upon waste land since i860 ; the above increase should hardly do for
covering that area, so that the 2J million acres which were cultivated no
longer remained fully uncovered. They were a pure loss to the nation.

46 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

in rotation (17,201,490 acres in 1885 and 16,166,950
acres in 1895), we see that witliin the last ten years an-
other 1,000,000 acres went out of cultivation, without
any compensation whatever. It went to increase that
already enormous area of more than 16,000,000 acres
— one-half of the cultivable area — which goes under the
head of " permanent pasture," that is, hardly suffices to
feed one cow on each three acres !

Need I say, after that, that quite to the contrary
of what we are told about the British agriculturists
becoming " meat-makers " instead of " wheat-growers "
no increase of live stock took place during the last
ten years. Where, indeed, could they find their
food ? Far from devoting the land freed from cereals
to " meat-making," the country further reduced its
live stock. It had 6,597,964 head of horned cattle
in 1885, and 6,354,336 only in 1895; 26,534,600 sheep
in 1885 and 25,792,200 sheep in 1895.. True, the
number of horses was increased ; every butcher and
greengrocer runs now a horse " to take orders at the
gents' doors" (in Sweden and Switzerland, by the way,
they do it by telephone) ; and consequently Great
Britain has 1,545,228 horses instead of the 1,408,788
she had in 1885. But the horses are imported, as also
the oats and a considerable amount of the hay that is
required for feeding them. And if the consumption of
meat has really increased in this country, it is due to
cheap imported meat, not to the meat that would be pro-
duced in these islands.* In short, agriculture has not
changed its direction, as we are often told ; it simply
went down in all directions. Land is going out of cul-
ture at a perilous rate, while the latest improvements in
market-gardening, fruit-growing and poultry-keeping
are but a mere trifle if we compare them with what has

* No less tlian 5,877,000 cwts. of beef and mutton, 1,065,470 sheep and
lambs, and 415,565 pieces of cattle were imported in 1895.

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 47

been done in the same direction in France, Belgium
and America.

The cause of this general downward movement is
self-evident. It is the desertion, the abandonment of
the land. Each crop requiring human labour has had its
area reduced ; and one-third of the agricultural labourers
have been sent away since 1861 to reinforce the ranks
of the unemployed in tlie cities,* so that far from being
over-populated, the fields of Bri tain are starved of
human labour as James CairiJisei to say. TEe^ British
nation does not work "on her soil ; she is prevented from
doing so ; and the would-be economists complain that
the soil will not nourish its inhabitants!

I once took a knapsack axid went on foot out of
London, through Sussex. I had read Ldonce de La-
vergne's work and expected to find a soil busily culti-
vated ; but neither round London nor still less farther
south did I see men in the fields. In the Weald I could
walk for twenty miles without crossing anything but
heath or woodlands, rented as pheasant-shooting grounds
to " London gentlemen," as the labourers said. " Un-
grateful soil " was my first thought ; but then I would
occasionally come to a farm at the crossing of two roads
and see the same soil bearing a rich crop ; and my next
thought was tel seigneur, telle terrc, as the French
peasants say. Later on I saw the rich fields of the
midland counties ; but even there I was struck by not
perceiving the same busy human labour which I was
accustomed to admire on the Belgian and French fields.
But I ceased to wonder when I learnt that only
1,383,000 men and women in England and Wales work
in the fields, while more than 16,000,000 belong to the
" professional, domestic, indefinite, and unproductive
class," as these pitiless statisticians say. One million

* Agricultural labourers in England and Wales : 2,100,000 in 1861 ;
1,383,000 in 1884; 1,311,720 in i8gi.

48 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

and three hundred thousand human beings cannot pro-
ductively cultivate an area of 33,000,000 acres unless
they can resort to the Bonanza farm's methods of cul-
ture.

Again, taking Harrow as the centre of my excursions,
I could walk five miles towards London, or turning my
back upon it, and I could see nothing east or west but
meadow land on which they hardly cropped two tons
of hay per acre — scarce!}' enough to keep alive one
milch cow on each two acres. Man is conspicuous by
his absence from those meadows ; he rolls them with
a heavy roller m the spring ; he spreads some manure
every two or three years ; then he disappears until the
time has come to make hay. And that — within ten
miles from Charing Cross, close to a city with 5,000,000
inhabitants, supplied with Flemish and Jersey potatoes,
French salads and Canadian apples. In the hands of
the Paris gardeners, each thousand acres situated within
the same distance from the city would be cultivated by
at least 2000 human beings, who would get vegetables
to the value of from £^0 to ;£"300 per acre. But here
the acres which only need human hands to become
an inexhaustible source of golden crops lie idle, and
they say to us, " Heavy clay ! " without even knowing
that in the hands of man there are no unfertile soils ;
that the most fertile soils are not in the prairies of
America, nor in the Russian steppes ; that they are in
the peat-bogs of Ireland, on the sand downs of the
northern sea-coast of France, on the craggy mountains
of the Rhine, where they have been made by man's
hands.

The most striking fact is, however, that in some
undoubtedly fertile parts of the country things are even
in a worse condition. My heart simply ached when I
saw the state in which land is kept in South Devon,
and when I learned to know what " permanent pasture "
means. Field after field is covered with nothing but

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 49

grass, three inches high, and thistles in profusion.
Twenty, thirty such fields can be seen at one glance
from the top of every hill ; and thousands of acres are
in that state, notwithstanding that the grandfathers of
the present generation have devoted a formidable
amount of labour to the clearing of that land from the
stones, to fencing it, roughly draining it and the like.
In every direction I could see abandoned cottages and
orchards going to ruin. A whole population has dis-
appeared, and even its last vestiges must disappear if
things continue to go on as they have gone. And this ■
takes place in a part of the country endowed
with a most fertile soil and possessed of a climate
which is certainly more congenial than the cli-
mate of Jersey in spring and early summer — a land
upon which even the poorest cottagers occasionally raise
potatoes as early as the first half of May. But how can
that land be cultivated when there is nobody to cultivate
it .'' " We have fields ; men go by, but never go in," an
old labourer said to me ; and so it is in reality.*

It will be said, of course, that the above opinion
strangely contrasts with the well-known superiority of
British agriculture. Do we not know, indeed, that
British crops average twenty-eight bushels of wheat per
acre, while in France they reach only seventeen bushels ?
Does it not stand in all almanacs that Britain gets every
year ;£^ 180,000,000 sterling worth of animal produce —
milk, cheese, meat and wool — from her fields ? All that
is true, and there is no doubt that in many respects
British agriculture is superior to that of many other na-
tions. As regards obtaining the greatest amount of pro-

* Round the small hamlet where I stayed for two summers, there were ;
one farm, 370 acres, four labourers and two boys ; another, about 300
acres, two men and two boys ; a third, 800 acres, five men only and
probably as many boys. In truth, the problem of cultivating the land
with the least number of men has been solved in this sppt by not cuHIt
rating at ftl] fis much ?,s two-t}iirds of it.

4

so FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

duce with the least amount of labour, Britain undoubtedly
took the lead until she was superseded by America.
Again, as regards the fine breeds of cattle, the splendid
state of the meadows and the results obtained in separate
farms, there is much to be learned from Britain. But
a closer acquaintance with British agriculture as a whole
discloses many features of inferiority. However splen-
did, a meadow remains a meadow, much inferior in
productivity to a cornfield ; and the fine breeds of cattle
appear to be poor creatures as long as each ox requires
three acres of land to be fed upon. Certainly one may
indulge in some admiration at the average twenty-eight
bushels grown in this country ; but when we learn that
only 1,417,000 acres, out of the cultivable 33,000,000,
bear such crops, we are quite disappointed. Any one
could obtain like results if he were to put all his manure
into one-twentieth part of the area which he possesses.
Again, the twenty-eight bushels no longer appear to
us so satisfactory when we learn that without any man-
uring, merely by means of a good culture, they have
obtained at Rothamstead an average of fourteen bushels
per acre from the same plot of land for forty consecutive
years ; * while with manuring they obtain thirty-eight
bushels instead of twenty-eight, and under the allotment
system the crops reach forty bushels. In some farms
they occasionally attain even fifty and fifty-seven
bushels per acre.

If we intend to have a correct appreciation of British
agriculture, we must not base it upon what is obtained
on a few selected and well-manured plots ; we must
inquire what is done with the territory, taken as a
whole.t Now, out of each 1000 acres of the aggregate

* The Rothamstead Experiments, 1888, by Professor W. Fream, p ^5 seq.

+ The figures which I take for these calculations are given in the
Statesman's Year-book, 1896, and the Agricultural Returns of the Board
of Agriculture for 1895.

They are as follows ; —

Total area (Great Britain) 56,457,500

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE.

S'

?io. I. — Proportion of the cultivated area which is given to cereals
altogether, and to wheat, in Great Britain and Ireland,

52 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

territory of England, Wales and Scotland, 418 acres are
left under wood, coppice, heath, buildings and so on.
We need not find fault with that division, because it
depends very much upon natural causes. In France
and Belgium one-third of the territory is in like manner
also treated as uncultivable, although portions of it are
continually reclaimed and brought under culture. But,
leaving aside the " uncultivable " portion, let us see what
is done with the 582 acres out of looo of the " cultiv-
able " part (32,777,000 acres in Great Britain). First
of all, it is divided into two almost equal parts, and one
of them — 295 acres out of 1000 — is left under " perma-
nent pasture,' that is, in most cases it is entirely un-
cultivated. Very little hay is obtained from it,* and
some cattle are grazed upon it. More than one-half of
the cultivable area is thus left without cultivation, and
the remainder, i.e., 287 acres only out of each looo
acres, is under culture. Out of these last, 1 10 acres are
under corn crops, twenty-one acres under potatoes, hfty-

Uncultivable area : — ■ Acres.

England 7,481,000

Wales 1,885,000

Scotland ....... 14,314,000

Great Britain 23,680,1

000

Cultivable area : —

Great Britain 32,777i5oo

Out of it, under : —

Permanent pasture 16,610,563

Clover and mature grasses ...... 4,729,801

Corn crops and potatoes (541,217 acres) .... 7,400,227

Green crops 3,225,762

Bare fallow, etc. . . 475,650

Hops 58)940

Small fruit 74,547

Flax 2,023

Under culture (including permanent pasture giving hay) . 16,166,950

Out of the 6,879,825 acres given to corn crops, 1,417,641 acres were
under wheat; 2,166,279 under barley, and 3,225,905 under oats.

* Only from each eighty-five acres, out of these 295, hay is obtained.
The remainder sre grazing grounds,

THE POSSIBILITIES OK AGRICULTURE. 53

seven acres under green crcjps and eighty-four acres
under clover fields and grasses under rotation. And
finally, out of the no acres given to corn crops, the
best twenty-five acres (one-fortieth part of the territory,
one-twenty-third of the cultivable area) are picked out
and sown with wheat. They are well cultivated, well
manured, and upon them an average of twenty-eight
bushels to the acre is obtained ; and upon these twenty-
five acres out of looo the world superiority of British
agriculture is based.

The net result of all that is, that on nearly 33,000,000
acres of cultivable land the food is grown for one-third
part only of the population (two-thirds of the food it con-
sumes is imported), and we may say accordingly that,
although nearly two-thirds of the territory is cultivable,
British agriculture provides home-grown food for each
125 or 130 inhabitants only per square mile (out of
378). In other words, nearly three acres of the cul-
tivable area are required to grow the food for each
person. Let us then see what is done with the land in
France and Belgium.

Now, if we simply compare the average twenty-eight
bushels per acre of wheat in Great Britain with the
average seventeen bushels in France, the comparison
is all in favour of these islands ; but such averages are
of little value because the two systems of agriculture
are totally different in the two countries. The French-
man also has his picked and heavily manured " twenty-
five acres " in the north of France and in Ile-de-France,
and from these picked acres Jie obtains average crops
ranging from thirty-one to thirty-three bushels.* How-

* That is, thirty-one to thirty-three bushels on the average ; forty
bushels in good farms, and fifty in the best. The area under wheat is
17,500,000 acres; the cultivated area, 95,000,000 acres ; and the aggregate
superficies of France, 132,000,000 acres. Compare Lecouteux, he bU, sa
culture exUnsive et intensive, 1883 ; Risler, Physiologic et culture du bli,
1886 ; Boitet, Herbages et prairies luiturelles, 1885 ; Baudrillart, Les
populations agricoles de la Nonnandie, 1880; Grandeau, La production
agricole en France; L^once de Lavergne's last edition; and so on.

54 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

ever, he sows with wheat, not only the best picked out
acres, but also such fields on the Central Plateau and
in Southern France as hardly yield ten, eight and even
six bushels to the acre, without irrigation; and these
low crops reduce the average for the whole country.
The Frenchman cultivates much that is left here under
permanent pasture — and this is what is described as
his " inferiority " in agriculture. In fact, although the
proportion between what we have named the "cultiv-
able area " and the total territory is very much the same
in France as it is in Great Britain (624 acres out of each
1000 acres of the territory), the area under wheat crops
is nearly six times as great, in proportion, as what it
is in Great Britain (146 acres instead of twenty-five,
out of each looo acres); the corn crops altogether
cover more than two-fifths of the cultivable area, and
large areas are given besides to green crops, industrial
crops, vine, fruit and vegetables.

Taking everything into consideration, although the
Frenchman keeps less cattle, and especially grazes less
sheep than the Briton, he nevertheless obtains from
his soil nearly all the food that he and his cattle con-
sume. He imports, in an average year, but one-tenth
only of what the nation consumes, and he exports to
this country considerable quantities of food produce
(;j6' 1 0,000,000 worth), not only from the south, but also,
and especially, from the shores of the Channel (Brit-
tany butter and vegetables; fruit and vegetables from
the suburbs of Paris, and so on),*

The net result is that, although one-third part of the
territory is also treated as " uncultivable," the soil of

*The exports from France in 1894 (average year) attained: wine
233,000,000 fr., spirits 54,000,000 fr., cheese, butter and sugar 114,000000
fr. To this country France sent, same year, ;^2,744,87o worth of wine
£2,227,360 worth of refined sugar, £2,351,870 worth of butter, £982,800
worth of eggs (£1,611,500 in 1893), and £1,402,300 worth of brandy, all
of French origin only, in addition to £14,403,040 worth of manufactured
silks and woollens. The exports from Algeria are not taken in the above
figures.

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 55

France yields the food for 170 inhabitants per square
mile (out of 188), that is, for forty persons more, per
square mile, than this country*

It is thus apparent that the comparison with France
is not so much in favour of this country as it is said
to be ; and it will be still less favourable when we come,
in our next chapter, to horticulture. As to the com-
parison with Belgium, it is even more striking — the
more so as the two systems of culture are similar in
both countries. To begin with, in Belgium we also find
an average crop of twenty-seven and eight-tenths
bushels of wheat to the acre ; but the area given to wheat
is five times as big as Great Britain, in comparison
to the cultivable area, and the cereals cover almost one
half of the land available for culture.! The land is so
well cultivated that the average crops for the years i88g-

* Each 1000 acres of French territory are disposed of as follows : 376
acres are left under wood, coppice, communal grazing grounds, etc., and
624 acres are treated as "cultivable". Out of each "cultivable" 624
acres, 128 are under meadows (now irrigated to a great extent), ninety-
two under bare fallow and various cultures, 272 under cereals, eighty-
three under green and industrial crops, forty-seven under vineyards. No
less than 146 acres are under wheat, which yields twenty-eight to thirty
bushels in two departments, twenty-six bushels in twelve departments.

On the whole, more than seventeen bushels per. acre is the average in
one half of the country, and less than seventeen bushels in the other half.

As to cattle, we find in Great Britain 6,353,336 cattle {i.e., nineteen
head per each 100 acres of the cultivable area), including in that
number over 1,250,000 calves under one year, and 25,792,195 sheep (i.e.,
seventy-nine sheep per 100 acres of the same). In France we find
12,879,240 cattle (sixteen head per each too acres of cultivable area) and
only 20,721,850 sheep (twenty-five sheep per 100 acres of the same). In
other words, the proportion of horned cattle is nearly the same in both
countries (nineteen head and sixteen head per 100 acres), a considerable
difference appearing in favour of this country only as to the number of
sheep (seventy-nine as against twenty-five). The heavy imports of hay,
oil-cake, oats, etc., into this country must, however, not be forgotten,
because, for each head of cattle which lives on imported food, eight sheep
can be grazed, or be fed with home-grown fodder. As to horses, both
countries stand on nearly the same footing.

f Out of each 1000 acres of the territory, 673 are cultivable, and 327 are
left as uncultivable. Of the former, 317 acres are given to cereals, 182 to
green crops and grasses under rotation ; t2i acres are given to wheat and
wheat mixed with rye (ninety-four to pure wheat). Moreover, upon each
sixty-three acres, out of 1000, catch crops of carrots, mangold and swedes
are obtained.

S6 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

92 (the very bad year of 1891 being left out of account)
were twenty-eight and six-tenths bushels per acre for
winter wheat; nearly forty-seven bushels for oafs
(thirty-five to forty-one and a half in Great Britain),
and forty bushels for winter barley (twenty-nine to
thirty-five in Great Britain) ; while on no less than
459,800 acres catch crops of swedes (2,226,250 tons)'
and carrots (155,000 tons) were obtained. All taken,
they grow in Belgium more than 76,000,000 bushels of
cereals, i.e., fifteen and seven-tenths bushels per acre of
the cultivable area, while the corresponding figure for
Great Britain is only eight and a half bushels ; and they
keep almost twice as much cattle upon each cultivable
acre as js kept in Great Britain.* Large portions of the
land are given besides to the culture of industrial plants,
potatoes for spirit, beet for sugar, and so on.

However, it must not be believed that the soil of
Belgium is more fertile than the soil of this country.
On the contrary, to use the words of Laveleye, " only
one half, or less, of the territory offers natural condi-
tions which are favourable for agriculture " ; the other
half consists of a gravelly soil, or sands, " the natural
sterility of which- could be overpowered only by heavy
manuring " Man, not nature, has given to the Belgian
soil its present productivity. With this soil and labour,
Belgium succeeds in supplying nearly all the food of a
population which is denser than that of England and
Wales, and numbers 544 inhabitants to the square mile.
If the exports and imports of agricultural produce from
and into Belgium be taken into account, we can say that

* Taking all horses, cattle and sheep in both countries, and reckoning
eight sheep as equivalent to one head of horned cattle, we find that
Belgium has twenty-three cattle units and horses upon each 100 acres of
territory, as against twenty same units and horses in Great Britain. If
we take cattle alone, the disproportion is much greater, as we find thirty-
six cattle units on each 100 acres of cultivable area, as against nineteen
in Great Britain. The annual value of animal produce in Belgium is
estimated by the Annuairc Statistique de la Bclgjque (1893, p. 263) at
^^58,039,050, including poultry (£1,534.000).

THE POSSIlilLniLS OF AGKlCULTUkli.

s;

Laveleye's conclusions are still good, and that only
one inhabitant out of each ten to twenty requires im-

:=: 1^

V..J

Fig. 2. — Proportion oi the cultivated area which is given to cereals
altogether, and to wheat, in Belgium. The square which encloses
the wheat square represents the area given to both wheat and a
mixture of wheat with rye.

ported food. The soil of Belgium supplies with home-
grown food no less than 490 inhabitants per square mile,

S8

FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

and there remains something for export — no less than
;£^ 1,000,000 worth of agricultural produce being exported

F:g. 3. — Proportion of cultivated and uncultivated areas in Great ^
Britain, Belgium and France, a, Wheat ; b, wheat and rye
mixed ; c, other cereals ; rf, green crops and permanent pasture ;
e, uncultivated.

every year to Great Britain. Besides, it must not be
forgotten that Belgium is a manufacturing country

THE -POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 59

which exports home-made goods to the value of £g per
head of population (;£'s6,ooo,ooo, on the average, in
1886-92), while the total exports from the United King-
dom attain only £6 7s. per inhabitant. As to separate
parts of the Belgian territory, the small and naturally
unfertile province of West Flanders not only grows
the food of its 580 inhabitants on the square mile, but
exports agricultural produce to the value of 255. per
head of its population. And yet no one can read Lave-
leye's masterly work without coming to the conclusion
that Flemish agriculture would have realised still better
results were it not hampered in its growth by the steady
and heavy increase of rent. In the face of the rent
being increased each nine years, many farmers have
lately abstained from further improvements.

Without going as far as China, I might quote similar
examples from elsewhere, especially from Lombardy.
But the above will be enough to caution the reader
against hasty conclusions as to the impossibility of feed-
ing 39,000,000 people from 78,000,000 acres. They
also will enable me to draw the following conclusions :
(i) If the soil of the United Kingdom were cultivated
only as it was thirty-five years ago, 24,000,000 people,
instead of 1 7,000,000, could live on home-grown food ;
and that culture, while giving occupation to an additional
.750,000 men, would give nearly 3,000,000 wealthy home
customers to the British manufactures. (2) If the cul-
tivable area of the United Kingdom were cultivated as
the soil is cultivated on the average in Belgium, the
United Kingdom would have food for at least 37,000,000
inhabitants ; and it might export agricultural produce
without ceasing to manufacture so as freely to supply
all the needs of a wealthy population. And finally (3),
if the population of this country came to be doubled,
all that would be required for producing the food for
80,000,000 inhabitants would be to cultivate the soil
as it is cultivated in the best farms of this country.

6o FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

in Lombardy, and in Flanders, and to utilise some
meadows, which at present lie almost unproductive, m
the same way as the neighbourhoods of the big cities
in France are utilised for market-gardening. All these
are not fancy dreams, but mere realities; nothing but
modest conclusions from what we see round about us,
without any allusion to the agriculture of the future.

If we want, however, to know what agriculture can be,
and what can be grown on a given amount of soil, we
must apply for information to such regions as the district
of Saffelare in East Flanders, the island of Jersey, or
the irrigated meadows of Lombardy, which are men-
tioned in the next chapter. Or else we may apply to
the market-gardeners in this country, or in the neigh-
bourhoods of Paris or in Holland, to the " truck farms "
in America, and so on.

While science devotes its chief attention to indus-
trial pursuits, a limited number of lovers of nature and
a legion of workers whose very names will remain
unknown to posterity have created of late a quite new
agriculture, as superior to modern farming as modern
farming is superior to the old three-fields system of
our ancestors. Science seldom guided them, and some-
times misguided — as was the case with Liebig's theories,
developed to the extreme by his followers, who induced
us to treat plants as glass recipients of chemical drugs,
and who forgot that the only science capable of deal-
ing with life and growth is physiology, not chemistry.
Science seldom has guided them : they proceeded in the
empirical way ; but, like the cattle-growers who opened
new horizons to biology, they have opened a new field
of experimental research for the physiology of plants.
They have created a totally new agriculture. They
smile when we boast about the rotation system, having
permitted us to take from the field one crop every year,
or four crops each three years, because their ambition

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 6 1

is to have six and nine crops from the very same plot
of land during the tw^elve months. They do not under-
stand our talk about good and bad soils, because they
make the soil themselves, and make it in such quantities
as to be compelled yearly to sell some of it : otherwise
it would raise up the level of their gardens by half an
inch every year. They aim at cropping, not five or
six tons of grass on the acre, as we do, but from fifty
to lOO tons of various vegetables on the same space;
not £(, worth of hay but ;6^ioo worth of vegetables,
of the plainest description, cabbage and carrots. That
is where agriculture is going now.

We know that the dearest of all varieties of our
staple food is meat ; and those who are not vegetarians,
either by persuasion or by necessity, consume on the
average 225 lb. of meat — that is, roughly speaking, a
little less than the third part of an ox — every year. And
we have seen, that, even in this country and Belgium,
two to three acres are wanted for keeping one head of
horned cattle ; so that a community of, say, 1,000,000
inhabitants would have to reserve somewhere about
3,000,000 acres of land for supplying it with meat. But
if we go to the farm of M. Goppart — one of the pro-
moters of ensilage in France — we shall see him growing,
on a drained and well-manured field, no less than an
average of 120,000 lb. of corn-grass in the acre, which
gives 30,000 lb. of dry hay — that is, the food of one
horned beast per acre. The produce is thus trebled.
As to" beetroot, which is used also for feeding cattle,
Mr. Champion, at Whitby, succeeds, with the help of
sewage, in growing 100,000 lb. of beet on each acre, and
occasionally 150,000 and 200,000 lb. He thus grows
on each acre the food of, at least, two or three head of
cattle. And such crops are not isolated facts : thus,
M. Gros, at Autun, succeeds in cropping 600,000 lb. of
beet and carrots, which crop would permit him to keep
four horned cattle on each acre. A^ \.q crpps of 100,000

62

FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

lb. of beet, they occur in numbers in the French com-
petitions, and the success depends entirely upon good
culture and appropriate manuring. It thus appears that
while under ordinary high farming we need from
2,000,000 acres to keep 1,000,000 horned cattle, double
that amount could be kept on one-half of that area ; and
if the density of population required it, the amount of
cattle could be doubled again, and the area required
to keep it might still be one-half, or even one-third of
what it is now.*

The above examples are striking enough, and yet
those afforded by the market-gardening culture are still
more striking. I mean the culture carried on in the
neighbourhood of big cities, and more especially the
culture maraichere round Paris. In that culture each
plant is treated according to its age. The seeds ger-
minate and the seedlings develop their first four leaflets
in especially favourable conditions of soil and tempera-
ture ; then the best seedlings are picked out and trans-
planted into a bed of fine loam, under a frame or in the
open air, where they freely develop their rootlets and,
gathered on a limited space, receive more than usual
care ; and only after that preliminary training are they
bedded in the open ground, where they grow till ripe.

* Assuming that 9000 lb. of dry hay are necessary for keeping one
head of horned cattle every year, the following figures (taken from
Toubeau's Repartition metrique des impots) will show what we obtain
now under usual and under intensive culture : —

Crop per acre.
Eng. lb.

Equivalent in
dry hay.
Eng. lb.

Number of
cattle fed from
each zoo acres.

Pasture

Unirrigated meadows
Clover, cut twice
Swedish turnips .
Rye-grass .
Beet, high farming
Indian corn, ensilage

38,500

64,000

64,000

120,000

1,200
2,400
4,800
10,000
18,000
21,000
30,000

13
26

52
108
180
2IO
330

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 63

In such a culture the primitive condition of the soil is of
little account, because loam is made out of the old forc-
ing beds. The seeds are carefully tried, the seedlings
receive proper attention, and there is no fear of drought,
because of the variety of crops, the liberal watering with
the help of a steam engine, and the stock of plants
always kept ready to replace the weakest individuals.
Almost each plant is treated individually.

There . prevails, however, with regard to market-
gardening, a misunderstanding which it would be well
to remove. It is generally supposed that what chiefly
attracts market-gardening to the great centres of popu-
lation is the market. It must have been so ; and so it
may be still, but to some extent only. A great number
of the Paris maraichers, even of those who have their
gardens within the walls of the city and whose main
crop consists of vegetables in season, export the whole
of their produce to England. What chiefly attracts the
gardener to the great cities is stable manure ; and this
is not wanted so much for increasing the richness of the
soil — one-tenth part of the manure used by the French
gardeners would do for that purpose — but for keeping
the soil at a certain temperature. Early vegetables pay
best, and in order to obtain early produce not only the
air but the soil as well must be warmed ; and that is done
by putting great quantities of properly mixed manure
into the soil ; its fermentation heats it. But it is evident
that with the present development of industrial skill,
the heating of the soil could be obtained more economi-
cally and more easily by hot-water pipes. Consequently,
the French gardeners begin more and more to make
use of portable pipes, or thermosifhons, provisionally
established in the cool frames. This new improvement
becomes of general use, and we have the authority of
Barral's Dictionnaire d' Agriculture to affirm that it gives
excellent results.

As to the different degrees of fertility of the soil —

64 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

always the stumbling--block of those who write about
agriculture — the fact is that in market-gardening the
soil is always made, whatever it originally may have
been. Consequently — we are told by Prof. Dybowski,
in the article " MaraTchers " in Barral's Dictionnaire
d Agriculture — it is now a usual stipulation of the rent-
ing contracts of the Paris maraichers that the gardener
may carry away his soil, down to a certain depth, when
he quits his tenancy. He himself makes it, and when he
moves to another plot he carts his soil away, together
with his frames, his water-pipes, and his other belong-
ings.*

I could not relate here all the marvels achieved in
market-gardening ; so that I must refer the reader to
works — most interesting works — especially devoted to
the subject, and give only a few illustrations. t Let
us take, for instance, the orchard — the marais- — of M.
Ponce, the author of a well-known work on the culture
maraichere. His orchard covered only two and seven-
tenths acres. The outlay for the establishment, including
a steam engine for watering purposes, reached ;£'ii36.
Eight persons, M. Ponce included, cultivated the orchard

* " Portable soil " is not the latest departure in agriculture. The last
one is the watering of the soil with special liquids containing special
microbes. It is a fact that chemical manures, without organic manure,
seldom prove to be sufficient. On the other hand, it was discovered
lately that certain microbes in the soil are a necessary condition for the
growth of plants. Hence the idea of sowing the beneficent microbes,
which rapidly develop in the soil and fertilise it. We certainly shall soon
hear more of this new method, which is experimented upon on a large
scale in Germany, in order to transform peat-bogs and heavy soils into
rich meadows and fields. See " Recent Science " in Nineteenth Century,
October, 1897.

t Ponce, La culture maraichere, i86g ; Gressent, L,e potager moderne,
7th edit., 1886; Courtois-GSrard, Manuel pratique de culture maraichire,
1863 ; Vilmorin, Le bon jardinier (almanac). The general reader who
cares to know about the productivity of the soil will find plenty of
examples, well classified, in the most interesting work La Repartition
mHrique des impots, by A. Toubeau, 2 vols., 1880. I do not quote many
excellent English manuals, but I must remark that the market-gardening
culture in this country has also obtained results very highly prized by the
Continental gardeners, and that the chief reprgjigh to be addrgssed to it
(S its felatively small ejftgnsion,

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 6$

and carried the vegetables to the market, for which
purpose one horse was kept ; when returning from
Paris they brought in manure, for which £ioo was
spent every year. Another ;^iOO was spent in rent and
taxes. But how to enumerate all that was gathered
every year on this plot of less than three acres, without
filling two pages or more with the most wonderful
figures? One must read them in M. Ponce's work,
but here are the chief items : more than 20,000 lb. of
carrots; more than 20,000 lb. of onions, radishes and
other vegetables sold by weight ; 6000 heads of cab-
bage; 3000 of cauliflower; 5000 baskets of tomatoes;
5000 dozen of choice fruit ; and 1 54,000 heads of salad ;
in short, a total of 250,000 lb. of vegetables. The soil
was made to such an amount out of forcing beds that
every year 250 cubic yards of loam had to be sold.
Similar examples could be given by the dozen, and the
best evidence against any possible exaggeration of the
results is the very high rent paid by the gardeners, which
reaches in the suburbs of London from i^io to £ic, per
acre, and in the suburbs of Paris attains as much as
£^2 per acre. No less than 2125 acres are cultivated
round Paris in that way by 5000 persons, and thus not
only the 2,000,000 Parisians are supplied with vege-
tables, but the surplus is also sent to London.

The above results are obtained with the help of warm
frames, thousands of glass bells, and so on. But even
without such costly things, with only thirty-six yards
of frames for seedlings, vegetables are grown in the
open air to the value of ;£^200 per acre.* It is obvious,
however, that in such cases the high selling prices of the
crops are not due to the high prices fetched by early
vegetables in winter ; they are entirely due to the high
crops of the plainest ones. Let me add also that all
this wonderful culture is a yesterday's growth. Fifty

* Manuel pratique de culture maraichere, by Courtois-G^rard, 4th
edit., 1863.

5

66 FIEl^^S, FACTORIES ANO WORKSHOPS.

tv.e culture maralchlre was quite primitive.
CnoTth'panf'gLdener not only defies the so:l he
would grow the same crops on an asphalt pavement-
he dehes climate. His walls, which are built to reflect
light and to protect the wall-trees from the northern
winds, his wall-tree shades and glass protectors, his
frames and ptpinilres have made a real garden, a rich
Southern garden, out of the suburbs of Paris. He has
given to Paris the " two degrees less of latitude " after
which a French scientific writer was longing ; he supplies
his city with mountains of grapes and fruit at any
season ; and in the early spring he inundates and per-
fumes it with flowers. But he does not only grow
articles of luxury. The culture of plain vegetables on
a large scale is spreading every year; and the results
are so good that there are now practical maratchers
who venture to maintain that if all the food, animal and
vegetable, necessary for 3,500,000 inhabitants of the
departments of Seine and Seine-et-Oise had to be
grown on their own territory (3250 square miles), it
could be grown without resorting to any other methods
of culture than those already in use — methods already
tested on a large scale and proved to be successful.

And yet the Paris gardener is not our ideal of an

agriculturist. In the painful work of civilisation he

has shown us the way to follow ; but the ideal of modem

civilisation is elsewhere. He toils, with but a short

interruption, from three in the morning till late in the

night. He knows no leisure ; he has no time to live

the life of a human being ; the commonwealth does not

exist for him ; his world is his garden, more than his

family. He cannot be our ideal ; neither he nor his

system of agriculture. Our ambition is, that he should

produce even more than he does with less labour, and

should enjoy all the joys of human life. And this is

rully possible.

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 6^

As a matter of fact, if we put aside those gardeners
who chiefly cultivate the so-called primeurs — straw-
berries ripened in January, and the like — if we take
only those who grow their crops in the open field, and
resort to frames exclusively for the earlier days of the
life of the plant, and if we analyse their system, we see
that its very essence is, first, to create for the plant a
nutritive and porous soil, which contains both the neces-
sary decaying organic matter and the inorganic com-
pounds ; and then to keep that soil and the surrounding
atmosphere at a temperature and moisture superior to
those of the open air. The whole system is summed up
in these few words. If the French maraicher spends
prodigies of labour, intelligence, and imagination in
combining different kinds of manure, so as to make
them ferment at a given speed, he does so for no pur-
pose but the above : a nourishing soil, and a desired
equal temperature and moisture of the air and the soil.
All his empirical art is devoted to the achievement of
these two aims. But both can also be achieved in an-
other and much easier way. The soil can be imf roved
by hand, but it need not he made by hand. Any soil,
of any desired composition, can be made by machinery.
We already have manufactures of manure, engines for
pulverising the phosphorites, and even the granites of
the Vosges ; and we shall see manufactures of loam as
soon as there is a demand for them.

It is obvious that at present, when fraud and adultera-
tion are exercised on such an immense scale in the
manufacture of artificial manure, and the manufacture
of manure is considered as a chemical process, while
it ought to be considered as a physiological one, the
gardener prefers to spend an unimaginable amount of
labour rather than risk his crop by the use of a pom-
pously labelled and unworthy drug. But that is a social
obstacle which depends upon a want of knowledge
gind a bad social organisation, not upon physical

68 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

causes.* As to the necessity of creating for the earlier
life of the plant a warm soil and atmosphere, forty years
ago L^once de Lavergne foretold that the next step in
culture would be to warm the soil. Heating pipes give
the same results as the fermenting manures, but at a
much smaller expense of human labour. And already
the system works on a large scale, as will be seen from
the next chapter. Through it the productive powers
of a given area of land are increased more than a hun-
dred times.

Of course now, when the capitalist system makes
us pay for everything four or five times its labour
value, we often spend about £i for each square yard
of a heated conservatory. But how many middlemen
are making fortunes on the wooden sashes imported
from Drontheim ? If we only could reckon our ex-
penses in labour, we should discover to our amazement
that, thanks to the use of machinery, the square yard
of a conservatory does not cost more than half a day
of human labour ; and we will see presently that the
Jersey and Guernsey average for cultivating one acre
under glass is only three men working ten hours a day.
Therefore the conservatory, which formerly was a luxury,
is rapidly entering into the domain of high culture. And
■ we may foresee the day* when the glass conservatory
will be considered as a necessary appendix to the field,
both for the growth of those fruits and vegetables which
cannot succeed in the open air, and for the preliminary

* Already it is partly removed in France and Belgium, owing to the
public laboratories where analyses of seeds and manure are made
free. The falsifications discovered by these laboratories exceed all that
could have been imagined. Manures, containing only one-fifth part of
the nutritious elements they were supposed to contain, were foui(0-to be
quite common ; while manures containing injurious matters, and no
nutritious parts whatever, were not unfrequently supplied by firms of
" respectable " repute. With seeds, things stand even worse. Samples
of grass seeds which contained 20 per cent, of injurious grasses, or 20 per
cent, of grains of sand, so coloured as to deceive the buyer, or even
10 per cent, of a deadly poisonous grass, passed through the Ghent
laboratory.

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 69

training of most cultural plants during the earlier stages
of their life.

Home-grown fruit is always preferable to the half-
ripe produce which is imported from abroad, and the
additional work required for keeping a young plant
under glass is largely repaid by the incomparable
superiority of the crops. As to the question of labour,
when we remember the really incredible amount of
labour which has been spent on the Rhine and in
Switzerland for making the vineyards, their terraces,
and stone walls, and for carrying the soil up the stony
crags, as also the amount of labour which is spent every
year for the culture of those vineyards and fruit gardens,
we are inclined to ask, which of the two, all taken, re-
quires less of human labour- — a vinery (I mean the cold
vinery) in a London suburb, or a vineyard on the
Rhine, or on Lake Leman ? And when we compare the
prices realised by the grower of grapes round London
(not those which are paid in the West-end fruit shops,
but those received by the grower for his grapes in
September and October) with those current in Switzer-
land or on the Rhine during the same months, we are
inclined to maintain that nowhere in Europe, beyond
the forty-fifth degree of latitude, are grapes grown at
less ejcpense of human labour, both for capital outlay
and yearly work, than in the vineries of the London
and Brussels suburbs. As to the always overrated pro-
ductivity of the exporting countries, let us remember
that the vine-growers of Southern Europe drink them-
selves an abominable fiqicette ; that Marseilles fabricates
wine for home use out of dry raisins brought from
Asia ; and that the Normandy peasant who sends his
apples to London, drinks real cider only on great
festivities. Such a state of things will not last for ever ;
and the day is not far when we shall be compelled to
look to our own resources to provide many of the things
which we now import. And we shall not be the worse

70 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

for that. The resources of science, both in enlarging
the circle of our production and in new discoveries, are
inexhaustible. And each new branch of activity calls
into existence more and more new branches, which
steadily increase the power of man over the forces of
nature. If we take all into consideration ; if we realise
the progress made of late in the gardening culture, and
the tendency towards spreading its methods to the open
field ; if we watch the cultural experiments which are
being made now — experiments to-day and realities to-
morrow — and ponder over the resources kept in store
by science, we are bound to say that it is utterly im-
possible to foresee at the present moment the limits
as to the maximum number of human beings who could
draw their means of subsistence from a given area of
land, or as to what a variety of produce they could
advantageously grow in any latitude. Each day widens
former limits, and opens new and wide horizons. All
we can say now is, that 600 persons could easily live
on a square mile ; and that, with cultural methods
already used on a large scale, looo human beings — not
idlers — living on 1000 acres could easily, without any
kind of overwork, obtain from ■ that area a luxurious
vegetable and animal food, as well as the flax, wool, silk,
and hides necessary for their clothing. As to what may
be obtained under still more perfect methods — also
known but not yet tested on a large scale — it is better
to abstain from any forecast : so unexpected are the
recent achievements of intensive culture.

We thus see that the over-population fallacy does
not stand the very first attempt at submitting it to a
closer examination. Those only can be horror-stricken
at seeing the population of this country increase by one
individual every lOOO seconds who think of a human
being as a mere claimant upon the stock of material
wealth of mankind, without being at the same time a
contributor to that stock. But we, who see in each new-

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 7 1

born babe a future worker capable of producing much
more than his own share of the common stock — we
greet his appearance. We know that a crowded popula-
tion is a necessary condition for permitting man to
increase the productive powers of his labour. We know
that highly productive labour is impossible so long as
men are scattered, few in numbers, over wide territories,
and are thus unable to combme together for the higher
achievements of civilisation. We know what an amount
of labour must be spent to scratch the soil with a primi-
tive plough, to spin and weave by hand ; and we know
also how much less labour it costs to grow the same
amount of food and weave the same cloth with the
help of modern machinery. We also see that it is in-
finitely easier to grow 200,000 lb. of food on one acre
than to grow them on ten acres. It is all very well
to imagine that wheat grows by itself on the Russian
■steppes; but those who have seen how the peasant
toils in the " fertile " black-earth region will have one
desire : that the increase of population may permit the
use of the steam-digger and gardening culture in the
steppes; that it may permit those who are now the
beasts of burden of humanity to raise their backs and to
become at last men.

We must, however, recognise that there are a few
economists fully aware of the above truths. They
gladly admit that Western Elurope could grow much
more food than it does ; but they see no necessity nor
advantage in doing so, as long as there are nations
which can supply food in exchange for manufactured
goods. Let us then examine how far this view is correct.

It is obvious that if we are satisfied with merely
stating that it is cheaper to bring wheat from Riga than
to grow it in Lincolnshire, the whole question is settled
in a moment. But is it so in reality? Is it really
cheaper To have food from abroad .? And, supposing it

72 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

is, are we not yet bound to analyse that compound result
which we call price, rather than to accept it as a supreme
and blind ruler of our actions ?

We know, for instance, how French agriculture is
burdened by taxation. And yet, if we compare the
prices of articles of food in France, which herself grows
most of them, with the prices in this country, which im-
ports them, we find no difference in favour of the import-
ing country. On the contrary, the balance is rather in
favour of France, and it decidedly was so for wheat
until the new protective tariff was introduced. As soon
as one goes out of Paris (where the prices are swollen
by a heavy octroi), one finds that every home produce
is cheaper in France than it is in England, and that the
prices decrease further when we go farther East on the
Continent.

There is, however, another feature still more unfavour-
able for this country : namely, the enormous development
of the class of middlemen who stand between the im-
porter and the home producer on the one side and the
consumer on the other. We have lately heard a good
deal about the quite disproportionate part of the prices
we pay which goes into the middleman's pockets. We
have all heard of the East-end clergyman who was
compelled to become butcher in order to save his
parishioners from the greedy middleman. We read in
the papers that many farmers of the midland counties
do not realise more than gd. for a pound of butter, while
the customer pays from i s. 6d. to i s. 8d. ; and that from
I ^d. to 2d. for the quart of milk is all that the Cheshire
farmers can get, while we pay 4d. for the adulterated,
and 5d. for the unadulterated milk. An analysis of the
Covent Garden prices and a comparison of the same
with retail prices, which was made some years ago in
the Daily News, proved that the customer pays for
vegetables at the rate of 6d. to is., and sometimes more,
for each penny realised by the grower. But in a

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 73

country of imported food it must be so : the grower who
himself sells his own produce disappears from its
markets, and in his place appears the middleman*
If we move, however, towards the East, and go to
Belgium, Germany, and Russia, we find that the cost of
living is more and more reduced, so that finally we find
that in Russia, which remains still agricultural, wheat
costs one-half or two-thirds of its London prices, and
meat is sold throughout the provinces at from five to
ten farthings (kopecks) the pound. And we may there-
fore hold that it is not yet proved at all that it is cheaper
to live on imported food than to grow it ourselves.

But if we analyse -price, and make a distinction
between its different elements, the disadvantage becomes
still more apparent. If we compare, for instance, the
costs of growing wheat in this country and in Russia,
we are told that in the United Kingdom the hundred-
weight of wheat cannot be grown at less than 8s. /d. ;
while in Russia the costs of production of the same
hundredweight are estimated at from 3s. 6d. to 4s. pd.t
The difference is enormous, and it would still remain
very great even if we admit that there is some exag-
geration in the former figure. But why this difference ?
Are the Russian labourers paid so much less for their

* A few winters ago, a friend of mine, who lived in a London suburb,
used to get his butter from Bavaria per parcel post. It cost him los. the
eleven pounds in Bavaria, parcel post inclusive (2s. 2d.), 6d. the money
order, and 2jd. the letter; total, less than ns. Butter of an inferior
quality (out of comparison), with 10 to 15 per cent, of water inclusive,
was sold in London at is. 6d. the lb. at the same time.

+ The data for the calculation of the cost of production of wheat in
this country are those given by the Mark Lane Express ; they will be
found in a digestible form in an article on wheat-growing in the Quarterly
Review for April, 1887, and in W. E. Bear's book. The British Farmer
and his Competitors, London (Cassell), 1888. Although they are a little
above the average, the crop taken for the calculations is also above the
average. A similar inquiry has been made on a large scale by the
Russian Provincial Assemblies, and the whole is summed up in an elabo-
rate paper, in the Vyestnik Promyshlennosti, No. 49, 1887. To compare
the paper kopecks with pence I took the rouble at ^Vtt °f ''s nominal
value: such was its average quotation during the year 1886. I took 475
English lb. in the quarter of wheat.

74 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

work ? Their money wages surely are much lower, but
the difference is equalised as soon as we reckon their
wages in produce. The twelve shillings a week of the
British agricultural labourer represents the same amount
of wheat in Britain as the six shillings a week of the
Russian labourer represents in Russia,* not to say a
word about the cheapness of meat in Russia and the
low house rent. The Russian labourer is thus paid the
same amount of the produce grown as he is paid here.
As to the supposed prodigious fertility of the soil in the
Russian prairies, it is a fallacy. Crops of from sixteen
to twenty-three bushels per acre are considered good
crops in Russia, while the average hardly reaches thir-
teen bushels, even in the corn-exporting parts of the
empire. Besides, the amount of labour which is neces-
sary to grow wheat in Russia with no thrashing-
machines, with a plough dragged by a horse hardly
worth the name, with no roads for transport, and so
on, is certainly much greater than the amount of labour
which is necessary to grow the same amount of wheat
in Western Europe.

When brought to the London market, Russian wheat
was sold in 1887 at 31s. the quarter, while it appeared
from the same Mark Lane Express figures that the
quarter of wheat could not be grown in this country
at less than 36s. 8d., even if the straw be sold, which is
not always the case. But the difference of the land rent
in both countries would alone account for the difference
of prices. In the wheat belt of Russia, where the

* It results from the detailed figures given by the Agricultural Depart-
ment (The Year 1885 with regard to Agriculture, vol. ii.), that the
average wages of the agricultural labourers were from 180 kopecks a
week in middle Russia to 330 kopecks in the wheat-exporting belt (from
3S. gd. to 6s. 6d.), and from 5s. 6d. to los, sd. during the harvest. Since
1885 the wages went up in both countries ; the average wages of the
English labourer were given for i8g6 at 13s. jd. If the Russian labourer
is so miserable in comparison with the English, it is due chiefly to the
exceedingly high personal taxation and several other causes which cannot
be here treated incidentally.

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 75

average rent stands at about 12 s. per acre, and the crop
is from fifteen to twenty bushels, the rent amounts to
from 3s. 6d. to 53. 8d. in the costs of production of each
quarter of Russian wheat ; while in this country, where
the rent and taxes are valued (in the Mark Lane Ex-
press figures) at no less than 40s. per each wheat-
growing acre, and the crop is taken at thirty bushels,
the rent amounts to los. in the costs of production of
each quarter.* But even if we take only 30s. per acre
of rent and taxes, and an average crop of twenty-eight
bushels, we still have 8s. 8d. out of the sale price of
each quarter of wheat, which goes to the landlord and
the State. If it costs so much more in money to grow
wheat in this country while the amount of labour is so
much less in this country than in Russia, it is due to the
very great height of the land rents attained during the
years i860- 1880. But this growth itself was due to the
facilities for realising large profits on the sale of manu-
factured goods abroad. The false condition of British
rural economy, not the infertility of the soil, is thus the
chief cause of the Russian competition.

Much more ought to be said with regard to the
American competition, and therefore I must refer the
reader to the remarkable series of articles dealing with
the whole of the subject which Schaeffle published in
1886 in the Zeitschrift fur die gesammie Staatswis-
senschaft, and to a most elaborate article on the costs
of growing wheat all over the world which appeared in
April, 1887, in the Quarterly Review. The conclusions
of these two writers are fully corroborated by the yearly
reports of the American Board of Agriculture, and
Schaeffle's previsions were fully supported by the subse-

* The rents have declined since 1887, but the prices of wheat also went
down. It must not be forgotten that as the best acres only are selected
for wheat-growing, the rent for each acre upon which wheat is grown
must be taken higher than the average rent per acre in a farm of from
200 to 300 acres.

76 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

quent reports of Mr. J. R. Dodge. It appears from
these works that the fertility of the American soil had
been grossly exaggerated, as the masses of wheat which
America sends to Europe from its north-western farms
are grown on a soil the natural fertility of which is not
higher, and often lower, than the average fertility of the
unmanured European soil. The Casselton farm in
Dakota, with its twenty bushels per acre, is an excep-
tion ; while the average crop of the chief wheat-growing
States in the West is only from eleven to twelve bushels.
If we wish to find a fertile soil in America, and crops
of from thirty to forty bushels, we must go to the old
Eastern States, where the soil is made by man's hands.*
But we shall not find it in the Territories, which are
satisfied with crops of from eight to nine bushels. The
same is true with regard to the American supplies of
meat. Schaeffle has pointed out that the great mass of
live stock which we see in the census of cattle in the
States is not reared in the prairies, but in the stables
of the farms, in the same way as in Europe ; as to the
prairies, we find on them only one-eleventh part of the
American horned cattle, one-fifth of the sheep and one-
twenty-first of the pigs.t " Natural fertility " being thus
out of question, we must look for social causes ; and we
have them, for the Western States, in the cheapness of
land and a proper organisation of production ; and for
the Eastern States in the rapid progress of intensive
high farming.

It is evident that the methods of culture must vary
according to different conditions. In the vast prairies

* L. de Lavergne pointed out as far back as forty years ago that the
States are the chief importers of guano. In 1854 they imported it almost
to the same amount as this country, and they had, moreover, sixty-two
manufactories of guano which supplied it to the amount of sixteen times
the imports. Compare also Ronna's L'agriculture aux Etats Unis, 1881 ;
Lecouteux, Le ble ; and J. R. Dodge's Anmial Report of the American
Department of Agriculture for 1885 and 1886. Schaeffle's work is also
summed up in SchmoUer's Jahrbuch.

t See also J. R. Dodge's Farm and Factory, New York, 1884.

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. "JJ

of North America, where land could be bought from 8s.
to 40s. the acre, and where spaces of from lOO to 150
square miles in one block could be given to wheat
culture, special methods of culture were applied and
the results were excellent. Land was bought — not
rented. In the autumn, whole studs of horses were
brought, and the tilling and sowing were done with the
aid of formidable ploughs and sowing machines. Then
the horses were sent to graze in the mountains ; the
men were dismissed, and one man, occasionally two or
three, remained to winter on the farm. In the spring
the owners' agents began to beat the inns for hundreds
of miles round, and engaged labourers and tramps, both
freely supplied by Europe, for the crop. Battalions of
men were marched to the wheat fields, and were
camped there ; the horses were brought from the moun-
tains, and in a week or two the crop was cut, thrashed,
winnowed, put in sacks, by specially invented machines,
and sent to the next elevator, or directly to the ships
which carried it to Europe. Whereupon the men were
disbanded again, the horses were sent back to the
grazing grounds, or sold, and again only a couple of
men remained on "the farm.

The crop from each acre was small, but the machinery
was so perfected that in this way 300 days of one man's
labour produced from 200 to 300 quarters of wheat ; in
other words — the area of land being of no account —
every man produced in one day his yearly bread food
(eight and a half bushels of wheat) ; and taking into
account all subsequent labour, it was calculated that
the work of 300 men in one single day delivered to the
consumer at Chiceigo the flour that is required for the
yearly food of 250 persons. Twelve hours and a half
of work are thus required in Chicago to supply one man
with his yearly provision of wheat-flour.

Under the special conditions offered in the Far West
this certainly was an appropriate method for increasing

78 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

all of a sudden the wheat supplies of mankind. It
answered its purpose when large territories of unoccupied
land were opened to enterprise. But it could not answer
for ever. Under such a system of culture the soil was
soon exhausted, the crop declined, and intensive agri-
culture (which aims at high crops on a limited area) had
soon to be resorted to. Such was the case in Iowa in
the year 1878. Up till then, Iowa was an emporium
for wheat-growing on the lines just indicated. But the
soil was already exhausted, and when a disease came
the wheat plants had no force to resist it. In a few
weeks nearly all the wheat crop, which was expected to
beat all previous records, was lost ; eight to ten bushels
per acre of bad wheat were all that could be cropped.
The result was that " mammoth farms " had to be broken
up into small farms, and that the Iowa farmers (after a
terrible crisis of short duration — everything is rapid in
America) took to a more intensive culture. Now, they
are not behind France in wheat culture, as they already
grow an average of sixteen and a half bushels per acre
on an area of more than 2,000,000 acres, and they will
soon win ground. Somehow, with the aid of manure
and improved methods of farming they compete ad-
mirably with the mammoth farms of the Far West.

In fact, over and over again it was pointed out, by
Schaeffle, Semler, Oetken, and many other writers, that
the force of " American competition " is not in its mam-
moth farms, but in the countless small farms upon which
wheat is grown in the same way as it is grown in
Europe, i.e., with manuring, but with a better organised
production and facilities for sale, and without being com-
pelled to pay to the landlord a toll of one-third part, or
more, of the selling price of each quarter of wheat.
However, it was only after I had myself made a tour
in the prairies of Manitoba that I could realise the full
truth of the just-mentioned views. The 15,000,000 to
20,000,000 bushels of wheat, which are exported evpry

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 79

year from Manitoba, are grown almost entirely in farms
of one or two "quarter-sections," i.e., of 160 and 320
acres. The ploughing is made in the usual way, and in
an immense majority of cases the farmers buy the reap-
ing and binding machines (the " binders ") by associating
in groups of four. The thrashing machine is rented by
the farmer for one or two days, and the farmer carts his
wheat to the elevator with his own horses, either to
sell it immediately or to keep it at the elevator if he is
in no immediate need of money and hopes to get a
higher price in one month or two. In short, in Mani-
toba one is especially struck with the fact that, even
under a system of keen competition, the middle-size farm
admirably well competes with the mammoth farm, and
that it is not manufacturing wheat on a grand scale
which pays best. It is also most interesting to note that
thousands and thousands of farmers produce mountains
of wheat in the Canadian province of Toronto and in
the Eastern States, although the land is not prairie-
land at all, and the farms are, as a rule, small.

The force of " American competition " is thus not in
the possibility of having hundreds of acres of wheat in
one block. It lies in the ownership of the land, in a
system of culture which is appropriate to the character
of the country, in a widely developed spirit of associ-
ation, and, finally, in a number of institutions and
customs intended to lift the agriculturist and his pro-
fession to a high level which is unknown in Europe.

In Europe we do not realise at all what is done in
the States and Canada in the interests of agriculture.
In every American State, and in every distinct region
of Canada, there is an experimental farm, and all the
work of preliminary experiment upon new varieties of
wheat, oats, barley, fodder and fruit, which the farmer
has mostly to make himself in Europe, is made under
the best scientific conditions at the experimental farms,
on a small scale first and 00 a large scale next, The

8o FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.'

results of all these researches and experiments are not
merely rendered accessible to the farmer who would
like to know them, but they are brought to his know-
ledge, and, so to speak, are forced upon his attention
by every possible means. The " Bulletins " of the ex-
perimental stations are distributed in hundreds of
thousands of copies ; visits to the farms are organised
in such a way that thousands of farmers should inspect
the stations every year, and be shown by specialists the
results obtained, either with new varieties of plants or
under various new methods of treatment. Correspon-
dence is carried on with the farmers on such a scale that,
for instance, at Ottawa, the experimental farm sends out
every year a hundred thousand letters and packets.
Every farmer can get, free of charge and postage, three
pounds of seed of any variety of cereals, out of which he
can get next year the necessary seed for sowing several
acres. And, finally, in every small and remote township
there are held farmers' meetings, at which special lec-
turers, who are sent out by the experimental farms or
the local agricultural societies, discuss with the farmers
in an informal way the results of last year's experiments
and discoveries relative to every branch of agriculture,
horticulture, cattle-breeding, dairying and agricultural
co-operation.*

American agriculture really offers an imposing sight.
Not in the wheat fields of the far West, which soon
will become a thing of the past, but in the development
of rational agriculture and the forces which promote
it. Read the description of an agricultural exhibition,
" the State's fair," in some small town of Iowa, with its
70,000 farmers camping with their families in tents
during the fair's week, studying, learning, buying and
selling, and enjoying life. You see a national fete, and

* Some additional information on this subject will be found in the
articles of mine : " Some Resources of Canada," and " Recent Science,"
in Thi Nineteenth Centwy, January, 1898, and October, 1897.

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 8 1

you feel that you deal with a nation in which agriculture
is in respect Or read the publications of the scores of
experimental stations, whose reports are distributed
broadcast over the country, and are read by the farmers
and discussed at countless "farmers' meetings". Con-
sult the " Transactions " and " Bulletins " of the count-
less agricultural societies, not royal but popular; study
the grand enterprises for irrigation; and you will feel
that American agriculture is a real force, imbued with
life, which no longer fears mammoth farms, and needs
not to cry like a child for protection.

" Intensive " agriculture and gardening are already by
this time as much a feature of the treatment of the, soil
in America as they are in Belgium. As far back as
the year 1880, nine States, among which were Georgia,
Virginia and the two Carolinas, bought ;£"5,7 50,000 worth
of artificial manures ; and we are told that by this time
the use of artificial manure has immensely spread
towards the West. In Iowa, where mammoth farms
used to exist twenty years ago, sown grass is already
in use, and it is highly recommended by both the Iowa
Agricultural Institute and the numerous local agricul-
tural papers ; while at the agricultural competitions the
highest awards are given, not for extensive farming,
but for high crops on small areas. Thus, at a recent
competition in which hundreds of farmers took part,
the first ten prizes were awarded to ten farmers who had
grown, on three acres each, from 262 to 346^ bushels
of Indian corn, in other words from Sy to ii§ bushels
to the acre. This shows where the ambition of the
Iowa farmer goes. In Minnesota the prizes were given
two years ago for crops of 300 to 11 20 bushels of pota-
toes to the acre, i.e., from eight and a quarter to thirty-
one tons to the acre, while the average potato crop in
Great Britain is only six tons.

At the same time market-gardening is immensely
extending in America. In the market-gardens of Florida

6

82 ) FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

we see such crops as 445 to 600 bushels of onions per
acre, 400 bushels of tomatoes, 700 bushels of sweet
potatoes, which testify to a high development of culture.
As to the " truck farms " (market-gardening for export
by steamer and rail), they covered, in 1892, 400,003
acres, and the fruit farms in the suburbs of Norfolk,
in Virginia, were described by Prof. Ch. Baltet * as real
models of that sort of culture — a very high testimony
in the mouth of a French gardener who himself comes
from the model marais of Troyes.

And while people in London continue to pay almost
all the year round twopence for a lettuce (very often im-
ported from Paris), they have at Chicago and Boston
those unique establishments in the world where lettuces
are grown in immense greenhouses with the aid of
electric light; and we must not forget that although
the discovery of " electric " growth is European (it is
due to Siemens), it was at the Cornell University that it
was proved by a series ot experiments that electric
light is an admirable aid for forwarding the growth of
the green parts of the plant

In short, America, which formerly took the lead in
bringing " extensive " agriculture to perfection, now
takes the lead in " intensive," or forced, agriculture as
well. In this adaptability lies the real force of American
competition.

* h' Horticulture dans Us cinq Parties du Monde. Paris, 1895.

CHAPTER IV.

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE— (OT«/mM«rf).

The doctrine of Malthus — Progress in wheat-growing — East Flanders —
Jersey — Potato crops, past and present — ^Irrigation — Major Hallet's
experiments — Planted wheat.

Few books have exercised so pernicious an influence
upon the general development of economic thought as
Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population exer-
cised for three consecutive generations. It appeared at
the right time, like all books which have had any in-
fluence at all, and it summed up ideas already current
in the minds of the wealth-possessing minority. It was
precisely when the ideas of equality and liberty,
awakened by the French and American revolutions,
were still permeating the minds of the poor, while the
richer classes had become tired of their amateur excur-
sions into the same domains, that Malthus came to
assert, in reply to Godwin, that no equality is possible ;
that the poverty of the many is not due to institutions,
but is a natural law. Population, he wrote, grows too
rapidly and the new-comers find no room at the feast of
nature ; and that law cannot be altered by any change
of institutions. He thus gave to the rich a kind of
scientific argument against the ideas of equality ; and
we know that though all dominion is based upon
force, force itself begins to totter as soon as it is no
longer supported by a firm belief in its own rightfulness.

(83)

84 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

As to the poorer classes — ^who always resent the influ-
ence of ideas circulating at a given time amid the
wealthier classes — it deprived them of the very hope of
improvement ; it made them sceptical as to the promises
of the social reformers ; and to this day the most ad-
vanced reformers entertain doubts as to the possibility
of satisfying the needs of all, in case there should be
a claim for their satisfaction, and a temporary welfare
of the labourers resulted in a sudden increase of
population.

Science, down to the present day, remains permeated
with Malthus's teachings. Political economy continues
to base its reasoning upon a tacit admission of the im-
possibility of rapidly increasing the productive powers
of a nation, and of thus giving satisfaction to all wants.
That postulate stands, undiscussed, in the backgroimd
of whatever political economy, classical or socialist, has
to say about exchange value, wages, sale of labour
force, rent, exchange, and consumption. Political
economy never rises above the hypothesis of a limited
and insufficient supply of the necessaries of life ; it takes it
for granted. And all theories connected with political
economy retain the same erroneous principle. Nearly
all socialists, too, admit the postulate. Nay, even in
biology (so deeply interwoven now with sociology) we
have recently seen the theory of variability of species
borrowing a quite unexpected support from its having '
been connected by Darwin and Wallace with Malthus's
fundamental idea, that the natural resources must in-
evitably fail to supply the means of existence for the
rapidly multiplying animals and plants. In short, we
may say that Malthus's theory, by shaping into a pseudo-
scientific form the secret desires of the wealth-possessing
classes, became the foundation of a whole system of
practical philosophy, which permeates the minds of both
the educated and uneducated, and reacts fas practical

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 85

philosophy always does) upon the theoretical philosophy
of our century.

True, the formidable growth of the productive powers
of man in the industrial field, since he tamed steam
and electricity, has somewhat shaken Malthus's doctrine.
Industrial wealth has grown at a rate which no possible
increase of population could attain, and it can grow with
still greater speed. But agriculture is still considered a
stronghold of the Malthusian pseudo-philosophy. The
recent achievements of agriculture and horticulture are
not sufficiently well known ; and while our gardeners
defy climate and latitude, acclimatise sub-tropical plants,
raise several crops a year instead of one, and themselves
make the soil they want for each special culture, the
economists nevertheless continue saying that the surface
of the soil is limited, and still more its productive
powers ; they still maintain that a population which
should double each thirty years would soon be con-
fronted by a lack of the necessaries of life !

A few data to illustrate what can be obtained from
the soil were given in the preceding chapter. But the
deeper one goes into the subject the more new and strik-
ing data does he discover, and the more Malthus's fears
appear groundless.

To begin with an instance taken from culture in the
open field — namely, that of wheat — ^we come upon the
following interesting fact. While we are so often told
that wheat-growing does not pay, and England conse-
quently reduces from year to year the area of its wheat
fields, the French peasants steadily increase the area
under wheat, and the greatest increase is due to those
peasant families which themselves cultivate the land
they own. Since the end of the last century they have
nearly doubled both the area under wheat, as well as the
returns from each acre, so as to increase almost fourfold

86

FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

the amount of wheat grown in France * At the same
time the population has only increased by 41 per cent,
so that the ratio of increase of the wheat crop has been
six times greater than the ratio of increase of popula-
tion, although agriculture has been hampered all the
time by a series of serious obstacles — taxation, military
service, poverty of the peasantry, and even, up to 1884,
a severe prohibition of all sorts of association among
the peasants. It must also be remarked that during
the same hundred years, and even within the last fifty
years, market-gardening, fruit-culture and culture for
industrial purposes have immensely developed in France,
so that there would be no exaggeration in saying that
the French obtain now from their soil at least six or
seven times more than they obtained a hundred years
ago. The " means of existence " drawn from the soil
have thus grown about fifteen times quicker than the
population.

But the ratio of progress in agriculture is still better
seen from the rise of the standard of requirement as
regards cultivation of land. Some thirty years ago the
French considered a crop quite good when it yielded
twenty-two bushels to the acre ; but with the same soil
the present requirement is at least thirty-three bushels,
while in the best soils the crop is good only when it
yields from forty-three to forty-eight bushels, and occa-
sionally the product is as much as fifty-five bushels to the
acre.t There are whole countries — Hesse, for example

* The researches of Tisserand may be summed up as follows : —

Year.

Population

in

millions.

Acres under
wheat.

Average crop
in bushels
per acre.

Wheat crop in
bushels.

1789

1831-41

1882-88

27-0

33-4
38-2

9,884,000
13,224,000
17,198,000

9

15
18

87,980,000
194,225,000
311,619,000

t Grandeau, Etudes agronomiqucs, ze s^rie. Paris, 18

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 87

— ^which are satisfied only when the average crop attains
thirty-seven bushels ; while the experimental farms of
Central France produce from year to year, over large
areas, forty-one bushels to the acre, and a number of
farms in Northern France regularly yield, year after
year, from fifty-five to sixty-eight bushels to the acre.
Occasionally even so much as eighty bushels have been
obtained upon limited areas under special care.* In
fact, Prof. Grandeau considers it proved that by com-
bining a series of such operations as the selection of
seeds, sowing in rows, and proper manuring, the crops
can be largely increased over the best present average,
while the cost of production can be reduced by 50 per
cent, by the use of inexpensive machinery ; to say
nothing of costly machines like the steam digger, or the
pulverisers which make the soil required for each special
culture. They are now occasionally resorted to here
and there, and they surely will come into general use as
soon as humanity feels the need of largely increasing its
agricultural product.

When we bear in mind the very unfavourable con-
ditions in which agriculture stands now all over the
world, we must not expect to find considerable progress
in its methods realised over wide regions ; we must be
satisfied with noting the advance accomplished in sepa-
rate, especially favoured spots, where, for one cause or
another, the tribute levied upon the agriculturist was
not so heavy as to stop all possibility of progress.

One such example may be seen in the district of Saf-
felare in East Flanders. On a territory of 37,000 acres,
all taken, a population of 30,000 inhabitants, all peasants,
not only finds its food, but manages, moreover, to keep

* Risler, Physiologie et Culture du Ble. Paris, 1886. Taking the
whole of the wheat crop in France, we see that the following progress
has been realised. In 1872-1881 the average crop was 14-8 quintaux per
hectare. In 1882-1890 it attained i6-g quintaux per hectare. Increase
by 14 per cent, in ten years (Prof. C. V. Garola, hes Cereales, p. 70 seq.).

88 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

no less than 10,720 horned cattle, 3800 sheep, 1815
horses and 6550 swine, to grow flax, and to export
various agricultural produce *

Another illustration of this sort may be taken from
the Channel Islands, whose inhabitants have happily
not known the blessings of Roman law and landlord-
ism, as they still live under the common law of Nor-
mandy. The small island of Jersey, eight miles long
and less than six miles wide, still remains a land of open-
field culture ; but, although it comprises only 28,707
acres, rocks included, it nourishes a population of about
two inhabitants to each acre, or 1300 inhabitants to the
square mile, and there is not one writer on agriculture
who, after having paid a visit to this island, does not
praise the well-being of the Jersey peasants and the
admirable results which they obtain in their small farms
of from five to twenty acres, — very often less than five
acres — by means of a rational and intensive culture.

Most of my readers will probably be astonished to
learn that the soil of Jersey, which consists of decom-
posed granite, with no organic matter in it, is not at all
of astonishing fertility, and that its climate, though
more sunny than the climate of these isles, offers many
drawbacks on account of the small amount of sun-heat
during the summer and of the cold winds in spring.
But so it is in reality, and at the beginning of this
century the inhabitants of Jersey lived chiefly on im-
ported food. (See Appendix J.) The successes
accomplished lately in Jersey are entirely due to the
amount of labour which a dense population is putting
in the land ; to a system of land-tenure, land-transfer-
ence and inheritance very diffe'rent from those which
prevail elsewhere ; to freedom from State taxation ; and
to the fact that communal institutions have been main-
tained down to quite a recent period, while a number

* O. de Kerchove de Denterghen, La petite Culture des Flandrcs beiges
Gand, 1878.

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 89

of communal habits and customs of mutual support,
derived therefrom, are alive to the present time. As to
the fertility of the soil, it is made partly by the sea-weeds
gathered free on the sea-coast, but chiefly at Blaydon-
on-Tyne, out of all sorts of refuse — inclusive of bones
shipped from Plevna and mummies of cats shipped from
Egypt.

It is well known that for the last thirty years the
Jersey peasants and farmers have been growing early
potatoes on a great scale, and that in this line they
have attained most satisfactory results. Their chief aim
being to have the potatoes out as early as possible,
when they fetch at the Jersey Weigh-Bridge as much
as ;£"i7 and £20 the ton, the digging out of potatoes
begins, in the best sheltered places, as early as the
first days of May, or even at the end of April. Quite
a system of potato-culture, beginning with the selection
of tubers, the arrangements for making them germinate, .
the selection of properly sheltered and well situated
plots of ground, the choice of proper manure, and end-
ing with the box in which the potatoes germinate and
which has so many other useful applications, — quite a
system of culture has been worked out in the island
for that purpose by the collective intelligence of the
peasants.*

In the last weeks of May and in June, when the
export is at its height, quite a fleet of steamers runs
between this small island and various ports of Eng-
land and Scotland. Every day eight to ten steamers

* One could not insist too much on the collective character of the
development of that branch of husbandry. In many places of the south
coast early potatoes can also be grown — to say nothing of Cornwall and
South Devon, where potatoes are obtained by separate labourers in small
quantities as early as they are obtained in Jersey. But so long as this
culture remains the work of isolated growers, its results must necessarily
be inferior to what the Jersey peasants obtain through their collective
experience. For the technical details concerning potato-culture in Jersey,
see a paper by a Jersey grower, in the jfournal of Horticulture, 22nd and
zgth May, i8go.

go FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

enter the harbour of St. Holier, and in twenty-four
hours they are loaded with potatoes and steer for
London, Southampton, Liverpool, Newcastle, and Scot-
land. From 50,000 to 60,000 tons of potatoes, valued
at from ;£"26o,ooo to ;£■ 5 00,000, according to the year,
are thus exported every summer ; and, if the local con-
sumption be taken into account, we have at least
60,000 to 70,000 tons that are obtained, although no
more than from 6500 to 7500 acres are given to all
potato crops, early and late — early potatoes, as is well
known, never giving as heavy crops as the later ones,
Ten to eleven tons per acre is thus the average, while
in this country the average is only six tons per acre.

As soon as the potatoes are out the second crop of
mangold or of " three months' wheat " (a special variety
of rapidly growing wheat) is sown. Not one day is
lost in putting it in. The potato-field may consist of
one or two acres only, but as soon as one-fourth part
of it is cleared of the potatoes it is sown with the second
crop. One may thus see a small field divided into four
plots, three of which are sown with wheat at five or
six days' distance from each other, while on the fourth
plot the potatoes are being dug out.

The admirable condition of the meadows .and the
grazing land in the Channel Islands has often been
described, and although the aggregate area which is
given in Jersey to green crops, grasses under rotation,
and permanent pasture — -both for hay and grazing — is
less than 11,000 acres, they keep in Jersey over 12,300
head of cattle and over 2300 horses solely used for
agriculture and breeding.

Moreover, about 100 bulls and 1 600 cows and heifers
are exported every year,* so that by this time, as was
remarked in an American paper, there are more Jersey
cows in America than in Jersey Island. Jersey milk

* See Appendix J.

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 9I

and butter have a wide renown, as also the pears which
are grown in the open air, but each of which is protected
on the tree by a separate cap, and still more the fruit
and vegetables which are grown in the hothouses. In
a word, it will suffice to say that on the whole they ob-
tain agricultural produce to the value of £$0 to each
acre of the aggregate surface of the island.

Fifty pounds' worth of agricultural produce from
each acre of the land is sufficiently good. But the more
we study the modern achievements of agriculture the
more we see that the limits of productivity of the soil
are not attained, even in Jersey. New horizons are
continually unveiled. For the last fifty years science-;-
especially chemistry — and mechanical skill have been
widening and extending the industrial powers of man
upon organic and inorganic dead matter. Prodigies
have been achieved in that direction. Now comes the
turn of similar achievements with living plants. Hu-
man skill in the treatment of living matter, and science
— in its branch dealing with living organisms- — step in
with the intention of doing for the art of food-growing
what mechanical and chemical skill have done in the
art of fashioning and shaping metals, wood and dead
fibres of plants. Almost every new year brings some
new, often unexpected improvement in the art of agri-
culture, which for so many centuries had been dormant.

We just saw that while the average potato crop in
the country is six tons per acre, in Jersey it is nearly
twice as big. But Mr. Knight, whose name is well
known to every horticulturist in this country, has once
dug out of his fields no less than 1284 bushels of po-
tatoes, or thirty-four tons and nine cwts. in weight, on
one single acre ; and at a recent competition in Minne-
sota 1 1 20 bushels, or thirty tons, could be ascertained
as having been grown on one acre.

These are undoubtedly extraordinary crops, but quite

92 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

recently the French Professor Ainid Girard undertook
a series of experiments in order to find out the best
conditions for growing potatoes in his country * He did
not care for show-crops obtained by means of extrava-
gant manuring, but carefully studied all conditions : the
best variety, the depth of tilling and planting, the dis-
tance between the plants. Then he entered into
correspondence with some 350 growers in different parts
of France, advised them by letters, and finally induced
them to experiment. Strictly following his instructions,
several of his correspondents made experiments on a
small scale, and they obtained^-instead of the three tons
which they were accustomed to grow — such crops as
would correspond to twenty and thirty-six tons to the
acre.t Moreover, ninety growers experimented on
fields more than one-quarter of an acre in size, and more
than twenty growers made their experiments on larger
areas of from three to twenty-eight acres. The result
was that none of them obtained less than twelve tons to
the acre, while some obtained twenty tons, and the
average . was, for the 1 1 o growers, fourteen and a half
tons per acre.

However, industry requires still heavier crops.
Potatoes are largely used in Germany and Belgium
for distilleries ; consequently, the distillery owners try
to obtain the greatest possible amounts of starch from the
acre. Extensive experiments have lately been made
for that purpose in Germany, and the crops were : nine
tons per acre for the poor sorts, fourteen tons for the
better ones, and thirty-two ajid four-tenths tons for the
best varieties of potatoes.

Three tons to the acre and more than thirty tons to
the acre are thus the ascertained limits ; and one neces-
sarily asks oneself: Which of the two requires less

* See the Annates agrnnomiqucs for 1892 and 1893 ; also yournal des
Economistes, f^vrier, 1893, p. 215.
t Fifty to ninety tons per hectare.

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 93

labour in tilling, planting, cultivating and digging, and
less expenditure in manure— thirty tons grown on ten
acres, or the same thirty tons grown on one acre or
two ? If labour is of no consideration, while ever)' penny
spent in seeds and manure is of great importance, as is
unhappily very often the case with the peasant — he will
perforce choose the first method. But is it the most
economic .''

Again, I just mentioned that in the Saffelare dis-
trict and Jersey they succeed in keeping one head of
horned cattle to each acre of green crops, meadows
and pasture land, while elsewhere two or three acres
are required for the same purpose. But better results
still can be obtained by means of irrigation, either with
sewage or even with pure water. In England, farmers
are contented with one and a half and two tons of hay
per acre, and in the part of Flanders just mentioned,
two and a half tons of hay to the acre are considered a
fair crop. But on the irrigated fields of the Vosges, the
Vaucluse, etc., in France, six tons of dry hay become the
rule, even upon ungrateful soil ; and this means consider-
ably more than the annual food of one milch cow (which
can be taken at a little less than five tons) grown on each
acre. All taken, the results of irrigation have proved
so satisfactory in France that during the years 1862-82
no less than 1,355,000 acres of meadows have been
irrigated,* which means that the annual meat-food of at
least 1,500,000 full-grown persons, or more, has been
added to the yearly income of the country ; home-grown,
not imported. In fact, in the valley of the Seine, the
value of the land was doubled by irrigation ; in the
Sadne valley it was increased five times, and ten times
in certain landes of Britanny.t

* Barral in yournal d' Agriculture pratique, 2 ftvrier, 1889 ; Boitel,
Herbages et Prairies naturelles, Paris, 1887.

t The increase of the crops due to irrigation is most instructive. In
the most unproductive Sologne, irrigation has increased the hay crop

94 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

The example of the Campine district, in Belgium,
is classical. It was a most unproductive territory — mere
sand from the sea, blown into irregular mounds which
were only kept together by the roots of the heath ;
the acre of it used to be sold, not rented, at from 5 s. to
7s. (i 5 to 20 francs per hectare). But now it is capable,
thanks to the work of the Flemish peasants and to
irrigation, to produce the food of one milch cow per
acre — the dung of the cattle being utilised for further
improvements.

The irrigated meadows round Milan are another well-
known example. Nearly 22,000 acres are irrigated there
with water derived from the sewers of the city, and they
yield crops of from eight to ten tons of hay as a rule ;
occasionally some separate meadows will yield the fabu-
lous amount — fabulous to-day, but no longer fabulous
to-morrow — of eighteen tons of hay per acre, that is,
the food of nearly four cows to the acre, and nine times
the yield of good meadows in this country.* However,
English readers need not go so far as Milan for ascer-
taining the results of irrigation by sewer water. They
have several such examples in this country, in the
experiments of Sir John Lawes, and -especially at Craig-
entinny, near Edinburgh, where, to use Ronna's words,
" the growth of rye grass is so activated that it attains
its full development in one year instead of in three to
four years. Sown in August, it gives a first crop in
autumn, and then, beginning with next spring, a crop
of four tons to the acre is taken every month ; which

from two tons per hectare (two and a half acres) to eight tons ; in the
Vendue, from four tons of bad hay to ten tons of excellent hay. In the
Ain, M. Puris, having spent 19,000 francs for irrigating ninety-two and
a half hectares (about £2 los. per acre), obtained an increase of 207 tons
of excellent hay. In the south of France, a net increase of over four
bushels of wheat per acre is easily obtained by irrigation ; while for
market-gardening the increase was found to attain £^0 to ^40 per acre.
(See H. Sagnier, "Irrigation," in Barral's Dictionnaire d'Agriculture,
vol. iii., p. 339.)

* Dictionnaire d'Agricttlture, same article. See also Appendix I.

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 95

represents in the fourteen months more than fifty-six
tons (of green fodder) to the acre." * At Lodge Farm,
they grow forty to fifty-two tons of green crops per acre,
after the cereals, without new manuring. At Aldershot
they obtain excellent potato crops ; and at Romford
(Breton's Farm) Colonel Hope obtained, in 187 1-2, quite
extravagant crops of various roots and potatoes.!

It can thus be said that while at the present time
we give two and three acres for keeping one head of
horned cattle, and only in a few places one head of cattle
is kept on each acre given to green crops, meadows and
pasture, man has already in irrigation (which very soon
repays when it is properly made) the possibility of keep-
ing twice and even thrice as many head of cattle to the
acre over parts of his territory. Moreover, the very
heavy crops of roots which are now obtained (seventy-
five of no tons of beetroot to the acre are not infre-
quent) give another powerful means for increasing the
number of cattle without taking the land from what is
now given to the culture of cereals.

Another new departure in agriculture, which is full of
promises and probably will upset many a current notion,
must be mentioned in this place. I mean the almost
horticultural treatment of our corn crops, which is widely
practised in the far East, and begins to claim our atten-
tion in Western Europe as well.

At the First International Exhibition, in 1851, Major
Hallett, of Manor House, Brighton, had a series of very
interesting exhibits which he described as " pedigree
cereals ". By picking out the best plants of his fields,
and by submitting their descendants to a careful selec-

* Ronna, Les Irrigations, vol. iii., p. 67. Paris, i8go.

t Prof. Ronna gives the following figures of crops per acre : twenty-
eight tons of potatoes, sixteen tons of marigolds, 105 tons of beet, no
tons of carrots, nine to twenty tons of various cabbage, and so on. Most
remarkable results seem also to have been obtained by M. Goppart, by
growing green fodder for ensilage. See his work, Manuel de la Culture
des Mais et autres Fourrages verts, Paris, 1877.

96 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

tion from year to year, he had succeeded in producing
new prolific varieties of wheat and barley. Each grain
of these cereals, instead of giving only two to four ears,
as is the usual average in a corn-field, gave ten to twenty-
five ears, and the best ears, instead of carrying from sixty
to sixty-eight grains, had an average of nearly twice
that number of grains.

In order to obtain such prolific varieties Major Hallett
naturally could not sow his picked grains broadcast; he
planted them, each separately, in rows, at distances of
from ten to twelve inches from each other. In this way
he found that each grain, having full room for what is
called " tillering " (tallage in French *), would produce
ten, fifteen, twenty-five, and even up to ninety and lOO
ears, as the case may be ; and as each ear would contain
from 60 to 120 grains, crops of 500 to 2500 grains, or
more, could be obtained from each separately planted
grain. He even exhibited at the Exeter meeting of the
British Association three plants of wheat, barley and
oats, each from a single grain, which had the following
number of stems ; wheat, ninety-four stems ; barley,
no stems; oats, eighty-seven stems. t The barley
plant which had 1 10 stems thus gave something like
5000 to 6000 grains from one single grain. A careful
drawing of that wonderful stubble was made by Major
Hallett's daughter and circulated with his pamphlets.+

* " Shortly after the plant appears above ground it commences to
throw out new and distinct stems, upon the first appearance of which
a correspondent root-bud is developed for its support ; and while the new
stems grow out flat over the surface of the soil, their respective roots
assume a corresponding development beneath it. This process, called
' tillering,' will continue until the season arrives for the stems to assume
an upright growth." The less the roots have been interfered with by over-
crowding the better will be the ears (Major Hallett, " Thin Seeding," etc.).

f Paper on " Thin Seeding and the Selection of Seed," read before the
Midland Farmers' Club, 4th June, 1874.

X " Pedigree Cereals," 1889. Paper on " Thin Seeding," etc., just
mentioned. Abstracts from The Times, etc., 1862. Major Hallett con-
tributed, moreover, several papers to the yournal of the Royal Agricul-
tural Society, and one to The Nineteenth Century. By the courtesy of
the Co-operative Wholesale Society, I am enabled to reproduce that
drawing from a paper I contributed to the Society's Annual for 1897.

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE.

97

Again, in 1876, a wheat plant, with " 105 heads growing
on one root, on which more than 8000 grains were grow-
ing at once," was exhibited at the Maidstone Farmers'
Club.*

iV

Fio. 4.-

-Plant of barley, with no stems, obtained by Major
Hallett from one single planted grain.

Two different processes were thus involved in Hallett's
experiments : a process of selection, in order to create
new varieties of cereals, similar to the breeding of new

* Agricultural Gazette, 3rd January, 1876. Ninety ears, some of
which contained as many ag 153 grains each, were also obtained in N^vv
Zealand,

7

98 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

varieties of cattle ; and a method of immensely increas-
ing the crop from each grain and from a given area, by
planting each seed separately and wide apart, so as to
have room for the full development of the young plant,
which is usually suffocated by its neighbours in our
corn-fields*

The double character of Major Hallett's method —
the breeding of new proli-fic varieties, and the method
of culture by planting the seeds wide apart — seems,
however, so far as I am entitled to judge, to have
been overlooked until quite lately. The method was
mostly judged upon its results ; and when a farmer had
experimented upon " Hallett's Wheat," and found out
that it was late in ripening in his own locality, or gave
a less perfect grain than some other variety, he usually
did not care more about the method.t However, Major
Hallett's successes or non-successes in breeding such
or such varieties are quite distinct from what is to be
said about the method itself of selection, or the method
of planting wheat seeds wide apart. Varieties which
were bred on the windy downs of Brighton may be, or
may not be, suitable to this or that locality. Latest
physiological researches give such an importance to
evaporation in the bringing of cereals to maturity that
where evaporation is not so rapid as it is on the Brigh-
ton Downs, other varieties must be resorted to and bred
on purpose.t I should also suggest that quite different

* It appears from many different experiments (mentioned in Prof.
Garola's excellent work, L,es Cereales, Paris, 1892) that when tested seeds
(of which no more than 6 per cent, are lost on sowing) are sown broad-
cast, to the amount of 500 seeds per square metre (a little more than one
square yard), only 148 of them give plants. Each plant gives in such
case from two to four stems and from two to four ears ; but nearly 360
seeds are entirely lost. When sown in rows, the loss is not so great, but
it is still considerable.

t See Prof. Garola's remarks on " Hallett's Wheat," which, by the
way, seem to be well known to farmers in France and Germany [J^es
Cereales, p, 337).

X Besides, Hallett's wheat must not be sown later than the first week
of September. Those who may try experiments with planted wheat
must be especially careful to make the experiments in open fields, not in
a back garden, and to sow early,

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 99

wheats than the Enghsh ought to be experimented upon
for obtaining prohfic varieties ; namely, the quickly-
growing Norwegian wheat, the Jersey " three months'
wheat," or even Yakutsk barley, which matures with an
astonishing rapidity. And now that horticulturists, so
experienced in " breeding " and " crossing " as Vilmorin,
Carter, Sherif, W. Saunders in Canada and many others
are, have taken the matter in hand, we may feel sure
that future progress will be made. But breeding is one
thing ; and the planting wide apart of seeds of an appro-
priate variety of wheat is quite another thing.

This last method was lately experimented upon by
M. Grandeau, Director of the Station Agronomique de
I'Est, and by M. Florimond Desspr^z at the experi-
mental station of Capelle ; and in both cases the results
were most remarkable. At this last station a method
which is in use in France for the choice of seeds was
applied. Already now some French farmers go over
their wheat-fields before the crop begins, choose the
soundest plants which bear two or three e.qually strong
stems, adorned with long ears, well stocked with grains,
and take these ears. Then they crop off with scissors
the top and the bottom of each ear and keep its middle
part only, which contains the biggest seeds. With a
dozen quarts of such selected grains they obtain next
year the required quantity of seeds of a superior quality.*

The same was done by M. Dessprfez. Then each
seed was planted separately, eight inches apart in a
row, by means of a specially devised tool, similar to
the rayonneur which is used for planting potatoes ; and
the rows, also eight inches apart, were alternately given
to the big and to the smaller seeds. One-fourth part of
an acre having been planted in this way, with seeds ob-
tained from both early and late ears, crops corresponding
to 83.8 bushels per acre for the first series, and 90.4

* Upon this method of selecting seeds opinions are, however, at
variance amongst agrieulturists.

lOO

FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

bushels for the second series, were obtained ; even the
small grains gave in this experiment as much as 70.2
and 62 bushels respectively*

The crop was thus more than doubled by the choice
of seeds and by planting them separately eight inches
apart. It corresponded in Dessprfez's experiments to
600 grains obtained on the average from each grain sown;
and one-tenth or one-eleventh part of an acre was suffi-
cient in such case to grow the eight and a half bushels

Fig. 5 — Wheat Plants, a, Has given 17 ears from each planted
grain. Soil manured with chemical manure only, i, Has given
25 ears from each planted grain. Soil manured with both stable
and chemical manure.

of wheat which are required on the average for the
annual bread food per head of a population which
would chiefly live on bread.

Prof. Grandeau, Director of the French Station
Agronomique de I'Est, has also made, since 1886, ex-

* The straw was eighty-three and seventy-seven cwts. per acre in the
first case ; fifty-nine and forty-nine cwts. in the second case (Garola, hcs
Ceyeales). In his above-mentioned paper on "Thin Seeding," Major
Hallett mentions a crop at the rate of iq8 bushels to the acre, obtained
by planting nine inches apart,

TEIE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE.

lOI

periments on Major Hallett's method, and he obtained
similar results. " In a proper soil," he wrote, " one
single grain of wheat can give as much as fifty stems
(and ears), and even more, and thus cover a circle thir-
teen inches in diameter." * But as he seems to know
how difficult it often is to convince people of the plainest
facts, he published the photographs of separate wheat
plants grown in different soils, differently manured,
including pure river sand enriched by manure.t He

Fig. 6. — Squares at Professor Grandeau's experimental station, planted
with grains of wlieat, in three different soils ; a, pure sand ; b and
c, manured arable soil ; each grain 12 inches apart.

concluded that under proper treatment 2000 and even
4000 grains could be easily obtained from each planted
grain. The seedlings, growing from grains planted ten
inches apart, cover the whole space, and the experiment

* L. Grandeau, Etudes agronomiques, 38 sdrie, 1887-8, p. 43. This
series is still continued by one volume every year.

f On one of these photographs one sees that in a soil improved by
chemical manure only, seventeen stems from each grain are obtained;
with organic manure added to the former, twenty-five stems were obtained.
Reproduced by the courtesy of the Co-operative Wholesale Society.

I02 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

plot takes the aspect of an excellent corn-field, as may be
seen from a photograph given by Grandeau in his
Etudes agronomiques.

In fact, the eight and a half bushels required for
one man's annual food were actually grown at the
Tomblaine station on a surface of 2250 square feet, or
forty-seven feet square, i.e., on very nearly one-twentieth
part of an acre.

Again, we may thus say, that where we require now
three acres, one acre would be sufficient for growing
the same amount of food, if planting wide apart were
resorted to. And there is, surely, no more objection
to planting wheat than there is to sowing in rows, which
is now in general use, although at the time when the
system was first introduced, in lieu of the formerly usual
mode of sowing broadcast, it certainly was met with
great distrust. While the Chinese and the Japanese
used for centuries to sow wheat in rows, by means of a
bamboo tube adapted to the plough, European writers
objected, of course, to this method under the pretext
that it would require too much labour. It is the same
now with planting each seed apart. Professional writers
sneer at it, although all the rice that is grown in Japan
is planted and even replanted. Every one, however,
who will think of the labour which must be spent for
ploughing, harrowing, fencing, and keeping free of weeds
three acres instead of one and who will calculate the
corresponding expenditure in manure, will surely admit
that all advantages are in favour of the one acre as
against the three acres, to say nothing of the possibilities
of irrigation, or of the planting machine-tool, which will
be devised as soon as there is a demand for it.*

More than that, there is full reason to believe that
even this method is liable to further improvement by
means of replanting. Cereals in such cases would be

* See Appendix K.

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. IO3

treated as vegetables are treated in horticulture. Such
is, at least, the idea which began to germinate since the
methods of cereal culture that are resorted to in China
and Japan became better known in Europe. (See Ap-
pendix L.)

The future — a near future, I hope — will show what
practical importance such a method of treating cereals
may have. But we need not speculate about that future.
We have already, in the facts mentioned in this chapter,
an experimental basis for quite a number of means of
improving our present methods of culture and of largely
increasing the crops. It is evident that in a book which
is not intended to be a manual of agriculture, all I can
do is to give only a few hints to set people thinking
for themselves upon this subject. But the little that has
been said is sufficient to show that we have no right
to complain of over-population, and no need to fear it
in the future. Our means of obtaining from the soil
whatever we want, under any climate and upon any
soil, have lately beeh improved at such a rate that we
carmot foresee yet what is the limit of productivity of
a few acres of land. The limit vanishes in proportion
to our better study of the subject, and every year makes
it vanish farther and farther from our sight.

CHAPTER V.

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICVI^TURE— (continued).

Extension of market gardening and fruit growing : in France ; in the
United States — Culture under glass — Kitchen gardens under glass —
Hothouse culture : in Guernsey ; in Belgium — Conclusion.

One of the most interesting features of the present
evolution of agriculture ^s the extension lately taken
by intensive market gardening of the same sort as has
been described in the third chapter. What formerly
was limited to a few hundreds of small gardens, is
now spreading with an astonishing rapidity. In this
country the area given to market gardens has more
than doubled within the last sixteen years, and attained,
in 1894, 88,210 acres, as against 40,582 acres in 1879.*
But it is especially in France, Belgium and America that
this branch of culture has lately taken a great develop-
ment. (See Appendix M.)

At the present time no less than 1,075,000 acres are
given in France to market-gardening and intensive
fruit culture, and a few years ago it was estimated
that the average yield of every acre given to these
cultures attains £^^ los.t Their character, as well
as the amount of skill displayed in, and labour given
to, these cultures, will best appear from the following
illustrations.

* Charles Whitehead, Hints on Vegetable and Fruit Farming, London
(J. Murray), 1890. The Gardener's Chronicle, 20th April, 1895.

t Charles Baltet, L' Horticulture dans les cinq Parties du Monde.
Ouvrage couronni: par la Societe Nationale d' Horticulture. Paris
(Hachette), 1895.

(104)

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. lOS

About Roscoff, which is a great centre in Brittany
for the export to England of such potatoes as will keep
till late in summer, and of all sorts of vegetables, a
territory, twenty-six miles in diameter, is entirely given
to these cultures, and the rents attain and exceed £$
per acre. Nearly 300 steamers call at Roscoff to ship
potatoes, onions and other vegetables to London and
different English ports, as far north as Newcastle.
Moreover, as much as 4000 tons of vegetables are sent
every year to Paris.* And although the Roscoff penin-
sula enjoys a specially warm climate, small stone walls
are erected everywhere, and rushes are grown on their
tops in order to give still more protection and heat to
the vegetables.! The climate is improved as well as
the soil.

In the neighbourhoods of Cherbourg it is upon land
conquered from the sea that the best vegetables are
grown — more than 800 acres of that land being given
to potatoes exported to London ; another 500 acres
are given to cauliflower; 125 acres to Brussels sprouts;
and so on. Potatoes grown under glass are also sent
to the London market from the middle of April, and the
total export of vegetables from Cherbourg to England
attains 300,000 cwts., while from the small port of Bar-
fleur another 100,000 cwts. are sent to this country, and
about 60,000 cwts. to Paris. Nay, in a quite small
commune, Surtainville, near Cherbourg, ^^2800 are made
out of 180 acres of market gardens, three crops being
taken every year : cabbage in February, early potatoes
next, and various crops in the autumn — to say nothing
of the catch crops. At Ploustagel one hardly believes
that he is in Brittany. Melons used to be grown at
that spot, long since, in the open fields, with glass frames
to protect them from the spring frosts, and green peas
were grown under the protection of rows of furze which

* Charles Baltet, loc. cit.

t Ardouin Dumazet, Voyage en France, vol. v., p. lo.

I06 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

sheltered them from the northern winds. Now, whole
fields are covered with strawberries, roses, violets, cherries
and plums, down to the very sea beach.* Even the
landes are reclaimed, and we are told that in five years
or so there will be no more landes in that district (p.
265). Nay, the marshes of the Dol — " The Holland of
Brittany " - — protected from the sea by a wall (5050
acres), have been turned into market gardens, covered
with cauliflowers, onions, radishes, haricot beans and
so on, the acre of that land being rented at from £2 los.
to £\.

About Paris no less than 50,000 acres are given to
the field culture of vegetables and 25,000 acres to the
forced culture of the same. Already fifty years ago the
yearly rent paid by market gardeners attained as much
as ;£^i8 and .£^24 per acre, and yet it has been increased
since, as well as the gross receipts, which were valued
by Courtois Gdrard at ;£ 240 per acre for the larger
market gardens, and twice as much for the smaller ones
in which early vegetables are grown in frames.

The fruit culture in the neighbourhoods of Paris is
equally wonderful. At Montreuil, for instance, 750
acres, belonging to 400 gardeners, are literally covered
with stone walls, specially erected for growing fruit,
and having an aggregate length of 400 miles. Upon
these walls, peach trees, pear trees and vines are
spread, and every year something like 12,000,000
peaches are gathered, as well as a considerable amount
of the finest pears and grapes. The acre in such con-
ditions brings in ;£'56. This is how a " warmer cH-
mate " was made, at a time when the greenhouse was
still a costly luxury. All taken, 1250 acres are given
to peaches (25,000,000 peaches every year) in the
close neighbourhood of Paris. Acres and acres are
also covered with pear trees which yield three to five tons

* Ardouin Dumazet, Voyage en France, vol. v., p. 200.

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. I07

of fruit per acre, such crop being sold at from ^^50 to
;6^6o. Nay, at Angers, on the Loire, where pears are
eight days in advance of the suburbs of Paris, Baltet
knows an orchard of five acres, covered with pears (low
trees), which brings in ;£'400 every year; and at a dis-
tance of thirty-three miles from Paris one pear planta-
tion brings in £24 per acre — the costs of package,
transport and selling being deducted. Likewise, the
plantations of plums, of which 80,000 cwts. are con-
sumed every year at Paris alone, give an annual money
income of from ;£^29 to £4.8 per acre every year ; and yet,
pears, plums and cherries are sold at Paris, fresh and
juicy, at such a price that the poor, too, can eat fresh
home-grown fruit.

In the province of Anjou one may see how a heavy
clay, improved with sand taken from the Loire and with
manure, has been turned, in the neighbourhoods of
Angers, and especially at Saint Laud, into a soil which
is rented at from £2 los. to £$ the acre, and upon that
soil fruit is grown which a few years ago was exported
to America." At Bennecour, a quite small village of
850 inhabitants, near Paris, one sees what man can make
out of the most unproductive soil. Quite recently the
steep slopes of its hills were only mergers from which
stone was extracted for the pavements of Paris. Now
these slopes are entirely covered with apricot and cherry
trees, black-currant shrubs, and plantations of asparagus,
green peas and the like. In 1881, ;£^56oo worth of
apricots alone was sold out of this village, and it must
be borne in mind that competition is so acute in the
neighbourhoods of Paris that a delay of twenty-four
hours in the sending of apricots to the market will often
mean a loss of 8s. — one-seventh of the sale price on
each hundredweight, t

* Baudtillart, hes Populations agricoles de la France : Anjou, pp. 70-71.

t The total production of dessert fruit as well as dried or preserved

fruit in France was estimated, in 1876, at 84,000 tons, and its value was

I08 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

At Perpignan, green artichokes — a favourite vegetable
in France — are grown, from October till June, on an area
covering 2500 acres, and the net revenue is estimated
at ;£^32 per acre. In Central France, artichokes are even
cultivated in the open fields, and nevertheless the crops
are valued (by Baltet) at from £48 to ;£^ioo per acre.
In the Loiret, 1500 gardeners, who occasionally employ
5000 workmen, obtain from ^^400,000 to ;£'48o,ooo worth
of vegetables, and their yearly expenditure for manure
is ;£^6o,ooo. This figure alone is the best answer to
those who are fond of talking about the extraordinary
fertility of the soil, each time they are told of some
success in agriculture. At Lyons, a population of
430,000 inhabitants is entirely supplied with vegetables
by the local gardeners. The same is in Amiens, which
is another big industrial city. The districts surrounding
Orleans form another great centre for market-garden-
ing, and it is especially worthy of notice that the
shrubberies of Orleans supply even America with large
quantities of young trees.*

It would take, however, a volume to describe the
chief centres of market-gardening and fruit-growing in
France ; and I will mention only one region more, where
vegetables and fruit-growing go "hand in hand. It lies
on the banks of the RhSne, about Vienne, where we
find a narrow strip of land, partly composed of granite
rocks, which has now become a garden of an incredible
richness. The origin of that wealth, we are told by
Ardouin Dumazet, dates from some thirty years ago,
when the vineyards, ravaged by phylloxera, had to be
destroyed and some new culture had to be found. The
village of Ampuis became then renowned for its apricots.
At the present time, for a full 100 miles along the

taken at about 3,000,000,000 fr. (£'120,000,000) — more than one-half of
the war contribution levied by Germany. It must have largely increased
since 1876. (See Appendix M.)

* Ardouin Dumazet, i., 204.

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. IO9

Rhone, and in the lateral valleys of the Ardeche and
the Drome, the country is an admirable orchard, from
which millions' worth of fruit is exported, and the land
attains the selling price of from ;£^325 to ;£'400 the acre*
Small plots of land are continually reclaimed for culture
upon every crag. On both sides of the roads one sees
the plantations of apricot and cherry trees, while between
the rows of trees early beans and peas, strawberries,
and all sorts of early vegetables are grown. In the
spring the fine perfume of the apricot trees in bloom
floats over the whole valley. Strawberries, cherries,
apricots, peaches and grapes follow each other in rapid
succession, and at the same time cartloads of French
beans, salads, cabbages, leeks, and potatoes are sent
towards the industrial cities of the region. It would be
impossible to estimate the quantity and value of all that
is grown in that region. Suffice it to say that a tiny
commune. Saint Ddsirat, exported during Ardouin Du-
mazet's visit about 2000 cwts. of cherries every day.

I must refer the reader to the work of Charles Baltet
if he will know more about the extension taken by
market-gardening in different countries, and will only
mention Belgium and America.

The exports of vegetables from Belgium have in-
creased twofold within the last twenty years, and whole
regions, like Flanders, claim to be now the market-
garden of England, even seeds of the vegetables pre-
ferred in this country being distributed free by one
horticultural society in order to increase the export.
Not only the best lands are appropriated for that pur-
pose, but even the sand deserts of the Ardennes and
peat-bogs are turned into rich market-gardens, while
large plains (namely at Haeren) are irrigated for the
same purpose. Scores of schools, experimental farms,
and small experimental stations, evening lectures, and

* Ardouin Dumazet, vol. yii„ p. I?5.

no FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

SO on, are opened by the communes, the private societies,
and the State, in order to promote horticulture, and
hundreds of acres of land are covered with thousands
of greenhouses. Here we see one small commune ex-
porting 5500 tons of potatoes and £4000 worth of pears,
to Stratford and Scotland, and keeping for that purpose
its own line of steamers. Another commune supplies
the north of France and the Rhenish provinces with
strawberries, and occasionally sends some of them to
Covent Garden as well. Elsewhere early carrots, which
are grown amidst flax, barley and white poppies, give
a considerable addition to the farmer's income. In
another place we learn that land is rented at £24 and
£27 the acre, not for grapes or melon-growing but for
the modest culture of onions ; or that the gardeners
have done away with such a nuisance as natural soil in
their frames, and prefer to make their loam out of wood
sawings, tannery refuse and hemp dust, " animalised "
by various composts.* In short, Belgium, which is
one of the chief manufacturing countries of Europe, is
now becoming one of the chief centres of horticulture.
(See Appendix N.)

The other country which must especially be recom-
mended to the attention of horticulturists is America.
When we see the mountains of fruit imported from
America we are inclined to think that fruit in that
country grows by itself. " Beautiful climate," " virgin
soil," " immeasurable spaces " — these words continually
recur in the papers. The reality, however, is that horti-
culture — i.e., both market-gardening and fruit culture —
has been brought in America to a high degree of per-
fection. Prof. Baltet, a practical gardener himself,
originally from the classical marais (market-gardens) of
Troyes, describes the " truck farms " of Norfolk in Vir-

* Charles Baltet, L' Horticulture, etc,

,tHe possibilities of agriculture. 1 1 1

ginia as real " model farms ". A highly complimentary
appreciation from the lips of a practical maraicher who
has learned from his infancy that only in fairyland do
the golden apples grow by the fairies' magic wand. As
to the perfection to which apple-growing has been
brought in Canada, the aid which the apple-growers
receive from the Canadian experimental farms, and the
means which are resorted to, on a truly American scale,
to spread information amongst the farmers and to supply
them with new varieties of fruit trees — all this ought to
be carefully studied in this country, instead of inducing
Englishmen to believe that the American supremacy is
due to the golden fairies' hands. If one-tenth part of
what is done in the States and in Canada for favouring
agriculture and horticulture were done in this country,
English fruit would not have been so shamefully driven
out of the market as it is at the present time.

The extension given to horticulture in America is
immense. The " truck farms " alone — i.e., the farms
which work for export by rail or steam — covered in the
States in 1892 no less than 400,000 acres. At the very
doors of Chicago one single market-gardening farm
covers 500 acres, and out of these, 150 acres are given
to cucumbers, 50 acres to early peas, and so on. During
the Chicago Exhibition a special " strawberry express,"
composed' of thirty waggons, brought in every day
324,000 quarts of the freshly gathered fruit, and there
are days that over 10,000 bushels of strawberries
are imported in New York — three-fourths of that
amount coming from the " truck farms " of Virginia by
steamer.*

This is what can be achieved by an intelligent com-
bination of agriculture with industry, and undoubtedly
will be applied on a still larger scale in the future.

However, a further advance is being made in order

1* Ch, Baltet, L'Horticulturej etc,

112 FIELDS,, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

to emancipate horticulture from climate. I mean the
glasshouse culture of fruit and vegetables.

Formerly the greenhouse was the luxury of the rich
mansion. It was kept at a high temperature, and was
made use of for growing, under cold skies, the golden
fruit and the bewitching flowers of the South. Now,
and especially since the progress of technics allows of
making cheap glass and of having all the woodwork,
sashes and bars of a greenhouse made by machinery,
the glasshouse becomes appropriated for growing fruit
for the million, as well as for the culture of common
vegetables. The aristocratic hothouse, stocked with the
rarest fruit trees and flowers, remains ; nay, it spreads
more and more for growing luxuries which become more
and more accessible to the great number. But by its
side we have the plebeian greenhouse, which is heated
for only a couple of months in winter, and the still more
economically built " cool greenhouse," which is a simple
glass shelter — a big " cool frame " — and is stuffed with
the humble vegetables of the kitchen garden : the po-
tatoes, the carrots, the French beans, the peas and the
like. The heat of the sun, passing through the glass,
but prevented by the same glass from escaping by radia-
tion, is sufficient to keep it at a very high temperature
during spring and early summer. A new system of
horticulture — the market-garden under glass — is thus
rapidly gaining ground.

The greenhouse for commercial purposes is essenti-
ally of British, or perhaps Scottish, origin. Already
in 185 1, Mr. Th. Rivers had published a book. The
Orchard Houses and the Cultivation of Fruit Trees in
Pots 'under Glass. And we are told by Mr. D. Thomson,
in i!n& Journal oj Horticulture (31st January, 1889), that
pearly fifty years ago grapes in February were sold at
25s. the pound by a grower in the north of England,
and that part of them was sent by the buyer to Paris,
for Napoleon III.'s table, ^.t jog, the pound. " Now,"

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE, II 3

Mr. Thomson adds, " they are sold at the tenth or twen-
tieth part of the above prices. Cheap coal — cheap
grapes ; that is the whole secret."

Large vineries and immense establishments for grow-
ing flowers under glass are of an old standing in this
country, and new ones are continually built on a grand
scale. Entire fields are covered with glass at Cheshunt,
at Broxburn (fifty acres), at Finchley, at Bexley, at
Swanley, at Whetstone, and so on, to say nothing of
Scotland. Worthing is also a well-known centre for
growing grapes and tomatoes ; while the greenhouses
given to flowers and ferns at Upper Edmonton, at Chel-
sea, at Orpington, and so on, have a world-wide reputa-
tion. And the tendency is, on the one side, to bring
grape culture to the highest degree of perfection, and, on
the other side, to cover acres and acres with glass for
growing tomatoes, French beans and peas, which un-
doubtedly will soon be followed by the culture of still
plainer vegetables.

At the present time the Channel Islands and Belgium
take the lead in the development of glasshouse culture.
The glory of Jersey is, of course, Mr. Bashford's estab-
lishment. When I visited it in i8go, it contained
490,000 square feet under glass — that is, nearly thirteen
acres, but seven more acres under glass have been added
to it since. A long row of glasshouses, interspersed with
high chimneys, covers the ground — the largest of the
houses being 900 feet long and forty-six feet wide ;
this means that about one acre of land, in one piece,
is under glass. The whole is built most substantially ^
granite walls, great height, thick " twenty-seven oz.
glass " (of the thickness of three pennies),* ventilators
which open upon a length of 200 and 300 feet by work-
ing one single handle ; and so on. And yet the most
luxurious of these greenhouses was said by the owners

* " Twenty-one oz." and even " fifteen oz." glass is used in the cheaper
greenhouses.

8

114 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

to have cost less than is. the square foot of glass (13d.
the square foot of ground), while the other houses have
cost much less than that. From 5d. to gd. the square
foot of glass * is the habitual cost, without the heating
apparatus — 6d. being a current price for the ordinary
glasshouses.

But it would be hardly possible to give an idea of
all that is grown in such glasshouses, without producing
photographs of their insides. In 1890, on the 3rd of
May, exquisite grapes began to be cut in Mr. Bashford's
vineries, and the crop was continued till October. In
other houses, cartloads of peas had already been
gathered, and tomatoes were going to take their place
after a thorough cleaning of the house. The 20,000
tomato plants, which were going to be planted, had to
yield no less than eighty tons of excellent fruit (eight
to ten pounds per plant). In other houses melons were
grown instead of the tomatoes. Thirty tons of early
potatoes, six tons of early peas, and two tons of early
French beans had already been sent away in April. As
to the vineries, they yielded no less than twenty-five tons
of grapes every year. Besides, very many other things
were grown in the open air, or as catch crops, and all
that amount of fruit and vegetables was the result of
the labour of thirty-six men and boys only, under the
supervision of one single gardener — the owner himself;
true that in Jersey, and especially in Guernsey, every
one is a gardener. About 1000 tons of coke were burnt
to heat these houses. Mr. W. Bear, who has visited the
same establishment in 1886, was quite right to say that
from these thirteen acres they obtained money returns
equivalent to what a farmer would obtain from 1300
acres of land.

However, it is in the small "' vineries " that one sees,
perhaps, the most admirable results. As I walked

* It is reckoned by measuring the height of the front and back walls
and the length of the two slopes of the roof.

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. II 5

through such glass-roofed kitchen gardens, I could not
but admire this recent conquest of man. I saw, for in-
stance, three-fourths of an acre heated for the first three
months of the year, from which about eight tons of
tomatoes and about 200 lb. of French beans had been
taken as a first crop in April, to be followed by two
crops more. In these houses one gardener was
employed with two assistants, a small amount of coke
was consumed, and there was a gas engine for watering
purposes, consuming only 13 s. worth of gas during the
quarter. I saw again, in cool greenhouses — simple plank
and glass shelters — pea plants covering the walls, for the
length of one quarter of a mile, which already had
yielded by the end of April 3200 lb. of exquisite peas
and were yet as full of pods as if not one had been taken
off. I saw potatoes dug from the soil in a cool green-
house, in April, to the amount of five bushels to the
twenty-one feet square. And when chance brought me,
in i8g6, in company with a local gardener, to a tiny,
retired " vinery " of a veteran grower, I could see there,
and admire, what a lover of gardening can obtain from so
small a space as the two-thirds of an acre. Two small
"houses" about forty feet long and twelve feet wide,
and a third— formerly a pigsty, twenty feet by twelve —
contained vine trees "which many a professional gardener
would be happy to have a look at ; especially the whilom
pigsty, fitted with " Muscats " ! Some grapes (in June)
were already in full beauty, and one fully understands
that the owner could get in 1895, from a local dealer,
£4. for three bunches of grapes (one of them was a
" Colmar," 13^ lb. weight). The tomatoes and straw-
berries in the open air, as well as the fruit trees, all on
tiny spaces, were equal to the grapes ; and when one is
shown on what a space half a ton of strawberries can be
gathered under proper culture, it is hardly believable.

It is especially in Guernsey that the simplification
of the greenhouse must be studied. Every house in

Il6 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

the suburbs of St. Peter has some sort of greenhouse,
big or small. All over the island, especially in the north,
wherever you look, you see greenhouses. They rise
amid the fields and from behind the trees ; they are
piled upon one another on the steep crags facing the
harbour of St. Peter ; and with them a whole generation
of practical gardeners has grown up. Every farmer is
more or less of a gardener, and he gives free scope to
his inventive powers for devising some cheap type of
greenhouses. Some of them have almost no front and
back walls — the glass roofs coming low down and the
two or three feet of glass in front simply reaching the
ground ; in some houses the lower sheet of glass was
simply plunged into a wooden trough standing on the
ground and filled with sand. Many houses have only
two or three planks, laid horizontally, instead of the
usual stone wall, in the front of the greenhouse. The
large houses of one big company are built close to each
other, and have no partitions between. As to the ex-
tensive cool greenhouses on the Grande Maison estate,
which are built by a company and are rented to gardeners
for so much the lOO feet, they are simply made of thin
deal board and glass. They are on the " lean to " or
" one roof " system, and the back wall, ten feet high,
and the two side walls are in simple grooved boards,
standing upright. The whole is supported by uprights
inserted into concrete pillars. They are said to cost not
more than 5d. the square foot, of glass-covered ground.
And yet, even such plain and cheap houses yield ex-
cellent results. The potato crop which had been grown
in some of them was excellent, as also the green peas.*
In Jersey I even saw a row of five houses, the walls of
which were made of corrugated iron, for the sake of
cheapness. Of course, the owner himself was not over-
sanguine about his houses. " They are too cold in

* Growing peas along the wall seems, however, to be a bad system.
It requires too much work in attaching the plants to the wall.

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Il8 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

winter and too hot in summer." But although the five
houses cover only less than one-fifth of an acre, 2000 lb.
of green peas had already been sold as a first crop ;
and, in the first days of June, the second crop (about
1500 plants of tomatoes) was already in good progress.
It is always difficult, of course, to know what are the
money returns of the growers, first of all because Thorold
Rogers' complaint about modern farmers keeping no
accounts holds good, even for the best gardening estab-
lishments, and next because when the returns are
known to me in all details it would not be right for me
to publish them. Roughly speaking, I can confirm Mr.
Bear's estimate to the effect that under proper manage-
ment even a cool greenhouse, which covers 4050 square
feet, can give a gross return of ;£^i8o. " Don't prove too
much ; beware of the landlord ! " a practical gardener
once wrote to me.

As a rule, the Guernsey and Jersey growers have only
three crops every year from their greenhouses. They
will start, for instance, potatoes in December. The
house will, of course, not be heated, fires being made
only when a sharp frost is expected at night ; and the
potato crop (from eight to ten tons per acre) will be
ready in April or May before the open-air potatoes begin
to be dug out. Tomatoes will be planted next and be
ready by the end of the summer. Various catch crops
of peas, radishes, lettuce and other small things will be
taken in the meantime. Or else the house will be
' started " in November with melons, which will be
ready in April. They will be followed by tomatoes,
either in pots, or trained as vines, and the last crop of
tomatoes will be in October. Beans may follow and
be ready for Christmas. I need not say that every
grower has his preference method for utilising his houses,
and it entirely depends upon his skill and watchfulness
to have all sorts of small catch crops. These last begin
to have a greater and greater importance, and one can

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. II9

already foresee that the growers under glass will be
forced to accept the methods of the French maratchers,
so as to have five and six crops every year, so far as it
can be done without spoiling the present high quality
of the produce.

All this industry is of very recent origin. One may
see it still working out its methods. And yet the
exports from Guernsey alone are already represented
by quite extraordinary figures. It was estimated
a few years ago that they were as follows : Grapes,
502 tons, ;£^37,500 worth at the average price of gd.
the pound ; tomatoes, 1000 tons, about ;£ 3 0,000 ; early
potatoes (chiefly in the fields), ;£'20,ooo ; radishes and
broccoli, ;i£'g250 ; cut flowers, ;£^3000 ; mushrooms, ;£"200 ;
total, ;£^99,950 — to which total the local consumption in
the houses and hotels, which have to feed nearly 30,000
tourists, must be added. But now these figures must
have grown considerably. In June, 1896, I saw the
Southampton steamers taking every day from 9000 to
12,000, and occasionally more, baskets of fruit (grapes,
tomatoes, French beans and peas), each basket represent-
ing from twelve to fourteen pounds of fruit. Taking
into account what was sent by other channels, we may
thus say that from 400 to 500 tons of tomatoes, grapes,
beans and peas, worth from ;£"20,ooo to ;£'25,ooo, are
exported every week in June.

All this is obtained from an island whose total area,
rocks and barren hill-tops included, is only 16,000 acres,
of which only 9884 acres are under culture, and 5189
acres are given to green crops and meadows. An island,
moreover, on which 1480 horses, 7260 head of cattle
and 900 sheep find their existence. How many men's
food is, then, grown on these 10,000 acres }

Belgium has also made, within the last few years,
an immense progress in the same direction. While no
more than 250 acres, all taken, were covered with glass
some twenty years ago, more than 800 acres are under

I20 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

glass by this time.* In the village of Hoeilaert, which
is perched upon a stony hill, nearly 200 acres are under
glass, given up to grape-growing. One single estab-
lishment, Baltet remarks, has 200 greenhouses and con-
sumes 1 500 tons of coal for the vineries.f " Cheap
coals — cheap grapes," as the editor of the Journal of
Horticulture wrote. Grapes in Brussels are certainly
not dearer in the beginning of the summer than they
are in Switzerland in October. Even in March, Belgian
grapes are sold in Covent Garden at from \A. and 6d. the
pound.J This price alone shows sufficiently how small
are the amounts of labour which are required to grow
grapes in our latitudes with the aid of glass. It certainly
costs less labour to grow grapes in Belgium than to grow
them on the coasts of Lake Leman.

The various data which have been brought together
on the preceding pages make short work of the over-
population fallacy. It is precisely in the most densely
populated parts of the world that agriculture has lately
made such strides as hardly could have been guessed
twenty years ago. FA. dense population, a high develop-
ment of industry, and a high development of agriculture
and horticulture, go hand in hand ?| they are inseparable.
As to the future, the possibilities of agriculture are such
that, in truth, we cannot yet foretell what would be the
limit of the population which could live from the produce
of a given area. Recent progress, already tested on a
great scale, has widened the limits of agricultural pro-

* I take these figures from the notes which a Belgium professor of
agriculture was kind enough to send me. The greenhouses in Belgium
are mostly with iron frames.

fA friend, who has studied practical horticulture in the Channel
Islands, writes me of the vineries about Brussels : " You have no idea to
what an extent it is done there. Bashford is nothing against it."

J A quotation which I took at random, in 1895, from a London daily,
was: " Covent Garden, igth March, 1895. Quotations; Belgian grapes,
4d. to 6d. ; Jersey ditto, 6d. to lod. ; Muscats, is. 6d. to 2S., and tomatoes,
3d. to 5d. per lb."

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 121

duction to a quite unforeseen extent ; and recent dis-
coveries, now tested on a small scale, promise to widen
those limits still farther to a quite unknown degree.

The present tendency of economical development in
the world is — ^we have seen — to induce more and more
every nation, or rather every region, taken in its geo-
graphical sense, to rely chiefly upon a home production
of all the chief necessaries of life. Not to reduce, I
mean, the world-exchange : it may still grow in bulk ;
but to limit it to the exchange of what really must be
exchanged, and, at the same time, immensely to increase
the exchange of novelties, produce of local or national
art, new discoveries and inventions, knowledge and
ideas. Such being the tendency of present development,
there is not the slightest ground to be alarmed by it.
There is not one nation in the world which, being armed
with the present powers of agriculture, could not grow
on its cultivable area all the food and most of the raw
materials derived from agriculture which are required
for its population, even if the requirements of that popu-
lation were rapidly increased as they certainly ought to
be. Taking the powers of man over the land and over
the forces of nature — such as they are at the present day
■ — ^we can maintain that two to three inhabitants to each
cultivable acre of land would not yet be too much. But
neither in this densely populated country nor in Bel-
gium are we yet in such numbers. In this country
we have, roughly speaking, one acre of the cultivable
area per inhabitant.

Supposing, then, that each inhabitant of Great Britain
were compelled to live on the produce of his own land,
all he would have to do would be, first, to consider the
land of this country as a common inheritance, which
must be disposed of to the best advantage of each and
all — this is, evidently, an absolutely necessary condition.
And next, he would have to cultivate his soil, not in some
extravagant way, but no better than land is already

122 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

cultivated upon thousands and thousands of acres in
Europe and America. He would not be bound to in-
vent some new methods, but could simply generalise and
widely apply those which have stood the test of experi-
ence. He can do it ; and in so doing he would save
an immense quantity of the work which is now given
for buying his food abroad, and for paying all the
intermediaries who live upon this trade. Under a
rational culture, those necessaries and those luxuries
which must be obtained from the soil, undoubtedly can
be obtained with much less work than is required now
for buying these commodities. I have made elsewhere
(in La Conquete du Pain) approximate calculations to
that effect, but with the data given in this book every one
can himself easily test the truth of this assertion. If
we take, indeed, the masses of produce which are ob-
tained under rational culture, and compare them with the
amount of labour which must be spent for obtaining
them under an irrational culture, for collecting them
abroad, for transporting them, and for keeping armies
of middlemen, we see at once how few days and hours
need be given, under proper culture, for growing man's
food.

For improving our methods of culture to that ex-
tent, we surely need not divide the land into one-acre
plotsj and attempt to grow what we zire in need of by
every one's separate individual exertions, on every one's
separate plot with no better tools than the spade ;
under such conditions we inevitably should fail. Those
who have been so much struck with the wonderful
results obtained in the petite culture, that they go about
representing the small culture of the French peasant,
or maraicher, as an ideal for mankind, are evidently
mistaken. They are as much mistaken as those other
extremists who would like to turn every country into a
small number of huge Bonanza farms, worked by mili-
tarily organised " labour battalions ". In Bonanza farms

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 1 23

human labour is reduced, but the crops taken from the
soil are far too small, and the whole system is robbery-
culture taking no heed of the exhaustion of the soil;
while in the petite culture, on isolated small plots, by
isolated men or families, too much of human labour is
wasted even though the crops are heavy. Real economy,
of both space and labour, requires quite different
methods, representing a combination of machinery work
with hand work.

In agriculture, as in everything else, associated labour
is the only reasonable solution. Two hundred families
of five persons each, owning five acres per family, hav-
ing no common ties between the families, and compelled
to find their living, each family on its five acres, almost
certainly would be an economical failure. Even leaving
aside all personal difficulties resulting from different
education and tastes and from the want of knowledge
as to what has to be done with the land, and admitting
for the sake of argument that these causes do not inter-
fere, the experiment would end in a failure, merely for
economical, for agricultural reasons. Whatever im-
provement upon the present conditions such an organisa-
tion might be, that improvement would not last ; it would
have to undergo a further transformation or disappear.

But the same two hundred families, if they consider
themselves, say, as tenants of the nation, and treat the
thousand acres as a common tenancy — again leaving
aside the personal conditions — would have, economically
speaking, from the point of view of the agriculturist,
every chance of succeeding, if they know what is the best
use to make of that land.

In such case they probably would first of all associate
for permanently improving the land which required im-
mediate improvement, and would consider it necessary
to improve more of it every year, until they had brought
it all into a perfect condition. On an area of 340 acres
they could most easily grow all the cereals — wheat, oats

124 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

etc. — required for both the thousand inhabitants and
their Hve stock — ^without resorting for that purpose to
replanted or planted cereals. They could grow on 400
acres, properly cultivated, and irrigated if necessary
and possible, all the green crops and fodder required to
keep the thirty to forty milch cows which would supply
them with milk and butter, and, let us say, the' 300 head
of cattle required to supply them with meat. On twenty
acres, two of which would be under glass, they would
grow more vegetables, fruit and luxuries than they could
consume. And supposing that half an acre of land is
attached to each house — for hobbies and amusement
(poultry-keeping, or any fancy culture, flowers, and the
like) — they would still have some 140 acres for all sorts
of purposes : public gardens, squares, manufactures and
so on. The labour that would be required for such an
intensive culture would not be the hard labour of the
serf or slave. It would be accessible to every one,
strong or weak, town bred or country born ; it would
also have many charms besides. And its total amount
would be far smaller than the amount of labour which
every thousand persons, taken from this or from any
other nation, have now to spend in getting their present
food, much smaller in quantity and of worse quality.
I mean, of course, the technically necessary labour,
without even considering the labour which we now have
to give in order to maintain all our middlemen, armies,
and the like. The amount of labour required to grow
food under a rational culture is so small, indeed, that
our hypothetical inhabitants would be led necessarily
to employ their leisure in manufacturing, artistic, scien-
tific, and other pursuits.

From the technical point of view there is no obstacle
whatever for such an organisation being started to-
morrow with full success. The obstacles against it are
not in the imperfection of the agricultural art, or in the
infertility of the soil, or in climate. They are entirely

THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 1 25

in our institutions, in our inheritances and survivals from
the past — in the " Ghosts " which oppress us. But to
some extent they he also — taking society as a whole —
in our phenomenal ignorance. We civilised men and
women know everything, we have settled opinions upon
everything, we take an interest in everything. We only
know nothing about whence the bread comes which we
eat — even though we pretend to know something about
that subject as well-^-we do not know how it is grown,
what pains it costs to those who grow it, what is being
done to reduce their pains, what sort of men those
feeders of our grand selves are ... we are more ig-
norant than savages in this respect, and we prevent our
children from obtaining this sort of knowledge — even
those of our children who would prefer it to the heaps
of useless stuff with which they are crammed at school.

CHAPTER VI.

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES.

Industry and agriculture — The small industries — Different types — Petty
trades in Great Britain : Sheffield ; Lake District ; Birmingham —
Petty trades in France — Weaving and various others — The Lyons
region — Paris, emporium of petty trades.

The two sister arts of agriculture and industry were
not always so estranged from one another as they are
now. There was a time, and that time is not so far
back, when both were thoroughly combined : the vil-
lages were then the seats of a variety of industries,
and the artisans in the cities did not abandon agri-
culture ; many towns were nothing else but industrial
villages. If the mediaeval city was the cradle of those
industries which bordered upon art and were intended
to supply the wants of the richer classes, stiU it was
the rural manufacture which supplied the wants of
the million, as it does until the present day in Russia,
and to a very great extent in Germany and France.
But then came the water-motors, steam, the develop-
ment of machinery, and they broke the link which
formerly connected the farm with the workshop.
Factories grew up and they abandoned the fields.
They gathered where the sale of their produce was
easiest, or the raw materials and fuel could be obtained
with the greatest advantage. New cities rose, and the
old ones rapidly enlarged ; the fields were deserted.
Millions of labourers, driven away by sheer force from
the land, gathered in the cities in search of labour, and

(126)

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 1 27

soon forgot the bonds which formerly attached them to
the soil. And we, in our admiration of the prodigies
achieved under the new factory system, overlooked the
advantages of the old system under which the tiller
of the soil was an industrial worker at the same time.
We doomed to disappearance all those branches of in-
dustry which formerly used to prosper in the villages ;
we condemned as industry all that was not a big
factory.

True, the results were grand as regards the increase
of the productive powers of man. But they proved
terrible as regards the millions of human beings who
were plunged into misery and had to rely upon precarious
means of living in our cities. Moreover, the system, as
a whole, brought about those abnormal conditions which
I have endeavoured to sketch in the two first chapters.
We are thus driven into a corner ; and while a thorough
change in the present relations between labour and
capital is becoming an imperious necessity, a thorough
remodelling of the whole of our industrial organisation
has also become unavoidable. The industrial nations
are bound to revert to agriculture, they are compelled
to find out the best means of combining it with industry,
and they must do so without loss of time.

To examine the special question as to the possibility
of such a combination is the aim of the following pages.
Is it possible, from a technical point of view ? Is it
desirable ? Are there, in our present industrial life, such
features as might lead us to presume that a change in
the above direction would find the necessary elements
for its accomplishment.? Such are the questions which
rise before the mind. And to answer them, there is,
I suppose, no better means than to study that immense
but overlooked and underrated branch of industries
which are described under the names of rural industries,
domestic trades, and petty trades : to study them, not in
the works of the economists who are too much inclined

128 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

to consider them as obsolete types of industry, but in
their life itself, in their struggles, their failures and
achievements.

The variety of forms of organisation which prevails
in the small industries is hardly suspected by those
who have not made them a subject of special study.
There are, first, two broad categories : those industries
which are carried on in the villages, in connection with
agriculture ; and those which are carried on in towns
or in villages, with no connection with the land — ^the
workers depending for their earnings exclusively upon
their industrial work. In Russia, in France, in Germany,
in Austria, and so on, millions and millions of workers
are in the first case. They are owners or occupiers of
the land, they keep one or two cows, very often horses,
and they cultivate their fields, or their orchards, or
gardens, considering industrial work as a by-occupation.
In those regions, especially, where the winter is long
and no work on the land is possible for several months
every year, this form of small industries is widely spread.
In this country, on the contrary, we find the opposite
extreme. Few small industries have survived in Eng-
land in connection with land-culture ; but hundreds of
petty trades are foiind in the suburbs and the slums
of the big cities, and large portions of the populations
of several towns, such as Sheffield and Birmingham,
find their living in a variety of petty trades. Between
these two extremes there is evidently a mass of inter-
mediate forms, according to the more or less close ties
which continue to exist with the land. Large villages,
and even towns, are thus peopled with workers who
are engaged in small trades, but most of whom have
a small garden, or an orchard, or a field, or only re-
tain some rights of pasture on the commons, while part
of them live exclusively upon their industrial earnings.

With regard to the sale of the produce, the small
industries offer the same variety of organisation. Here

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. I7g

again there are two great branches. In one of them
the worker sells his produce directly to the wholesale
dealer; cabinet-makers and part of the workers in the
toy trade are in this case. In the other great division
the worker works for a " master " who either sells the
produce to a wholesale dealer, or simply acts as a
middleman who himself receives his orders from some
big concern. This is the " sweating system," properly
speaking, under which we find a mass of small trades :
part of the toy trade, the tailors who work for big
clothing establishments — very often for those of the
State — the women who sew and embroider the " uppers "
for the boot and shoe factories, and who as often deal
with the factory as with an intermediary " sweater,"
and so on. All possible gradations of feudalisation and
sub-feudalisation of labour are evidently found in that
organisation of the sale of the produce.

Again, when the industrial, or rather technical aspects
of the small industries are considered, the same variety
of tj^es is soon discovered. Here also there are two
great branches : those trades, on the one side, which are
purely domestic — that is, those which are carried on in
the house of the worker, with the aid of his family, or of
a couple of wage-workers ; and those which are carried
on in separate workshops — all the just-mentioned
varieties, as regards connection with land and the divers
modes of disposing of the produce, being met with in
both these branches. All possible trades — ^weaving,
workers in wood, in metals, in bone, in india-rubber, and
so on — may be found under the category of purely do-
mestic trades, with all possible gradations between the
purely domestic form of production and the workshop
and the factory.

Thus, by the side of the trades which are carried
on entirely at home by one or more members of the
family, there are the trades in which the master keeps
a small workshop attached to his house, where he works

9

I30 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

with his family, or with a few " assistants,'' i.e., wage-
workers. Or else the artisan has a separate workshop,
supplied with wheel-power, as is the case with the Shef-
field cutlers. Or several workers come together in a
small factory which they maintain themselves, or hire
in association, or where they are allowed to work for a
certain weekly rent. And in each of these cases they
work either directly for the dealer or for a small master,
or for a middleman. A further development of this
system is the big factory, especially of ready-made cloth,
in which hundreds of women pay so much for the sewing-
machine, the gas, the gas-heated irons, and so on, and
are paid themselves so much for each piece of the
ready-made cloth they sew, or each part of it. Immense
factories of this kind exist in England, and it appeared
from testimony given before the " Sweating Committee "
that women are fearfully " sweated " in such workshops
— the full price of each slightly spoiled piece of cloth-
ing being deducted from their very low piecework wages.
And, finally, there is the small workshop ("often witli
hired wheel-power) in which a master employs three
to ten workers, who are paid in wages, and sells his
produce to a bigger employer or merchant — there being
all possible gradations between such a workshop and the
small factory in which a few time workers (five, ten to
twenty) are employed by an independent producer.
Moreover, in the textile trades, weaving is often done
either by the family or by a master who employs one
boy only, or several weavers, and after having received
the yarn from a big employer, pays a skilled workman
to put the yarn in the loom, invents what is necessary
for weaving a given, sometimes very complicated pattern,
and after having woven the cloth or the ribbons in his
own loom or in a loom which he hires himself, he is paid
for the piece of cloth according to a very complicated
scale of wages agreed to between masters and workers.
This last form, we shall see presently, is widely spread

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 13I

until now, especially in the woollen and silk trades, by
the side of big factories in which 50, TOO, or 5000 wage-
workers, as the case may be, are working with the
employers' machinery and are paid in time-wages so
much the day or the week.

The small industries are thus quite a world, which,
remarkable enough, continues to exist even in the most
industrial countries, side by side with the big factories.
Into this world we must now penetrate to cast a glimpse
upon it : a glimpse only, because it would take volumes
to describe its infinite variety of pursuits and organisa-
tion, and its infinitely varied connection, with agriculture
as well as with other industries.

Most of the petty trades, except some of those which
are connected with agriculture, are, we must admit, in a
very precarious position. The earnings are very low,
and the employment is often uncertain. The day of
labour is by two, three, or four hours longer than it is in
well-organised factories, and at certain seasons it reaches
an almost incredible length. The crises are frequent and
last for years. Altogether, the worker is much more at
the mercy of the dealer, or the employer, and the em-
ployer is at the mercy of the wholesale dealer. Both
are liable to become enslaved to the latter, running into
debt to him. In some of the petty trades, especially
in the fabrication of the plain textiles, the workers are
in dreadful misery. But those who pretend that such
misery is the rule are totally wrong. Any one who has
lived among, let us say, the watchmakers in Switzerland
and knows their inner family life, will recognise that the
condition of these workers is out of all comparison
superior, 'in every respect, material and moral, to the
conditions of millions of factory hands. Even during
such a crisis in the watch trade as was lived through
in 1876-80, their condition was preferable to the con-
dition of factory hands during a crisis in the woollen

132 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

or cotton trade ; and the workers perfectly well knew
it themselves.

Whenever a crisis breaks out in some branch of
the petty trades there is no lack of writers to predict
that that trade is going to disappear. During the crisis
which I witnessed in 1877 amidst the Swiss watch-
makers, the impossibility of a recovery of the trade in
the face of the competition of machine-made watches
was a current topic in the press. The same was said in
1882 with regard to the silk trade of Lyons, and, in fact,
wherever a crisis has broken out in the petty trades.
And yet, notwithstanding the gloomy predictions, and
the still gloomier prospects of the workers, that form
of industry does not disappear. Nay, we find it endowed
with an astonishing vitality. It undergoes various modi-
fications, it adapts itself to new conditions, it struggles
without losing hope of better times to come. Anyhow,
it has not the characteristics of a decaying institution.
In some industries the factory is undoubtedly victorious ;
but there are other branches in which the petty trades
hold their own position. Even in the textile industries,
which offer so many advantages for the factory system,
the hand-loom still competes with the power-loom.

As a whole, the transformation of the petty trades
into great industries goes on with a slowness which
cannot fail to astonish even those who are convinced
of its necessity. Nay, sometimes we may even see the
reverse movement going on — occasionally, of course, and
only for a time. I cannot forget my amazement when
I saw at Verviers, some twenty years ago, that most of
the woollen cloth factories — immense barracks facing the
streets by more than a hundred windows each — ^were
silent, and their costly machinery was rusting, while
cloth was woven in hand-looms in the weavers' houses,
for the owners of those very same factories. Here we
have, of course, but a temporary fact, fully explained by
the spasmodic character of the trade arid the heavy

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 1 33

losses sustained by the owners of the factories when
they cannot run their mills all the year round. But it
illustrates the obstacles which the transformation has
to comply with. As to the silk trade, it continues to
spread over Europe in its rural industry shape ; while
hundreds of new petty trades appear every year, and
when they find nobody to carry them on in the villages
— as is the case in this country — they shelter themselves
in the suburbs of the great cities, as we have lately
learned from the inquiry into the " sweating system ".

Now, the advantages offered by a large factory in
comparison with hand work are self-evident as regards
the economy of labour, and especially the facilities
both for sale and for having the raw produce at a lower
price. How can we then explain the persistence of the
petty trades ? Many causes, however, most of which
cannot be valued in shillings and pence, are at work in
favour of the petty trades, and these causes will be best
seen from the following illustrations. I must say, how-
ever, that even a brief sketch of the countless industries
which are carried on on a small scale in this country,
and on the Continent, would be far beyond the scope of
this chapter. When I began to study the subject some
fifteen years ago, I never guessed, from the little atten-
tion devoted to it by the orthodox economists, what a
wide, complex, important, and interesting organisation
would appear at the end of a closer inquiry. So I see
myself compelled to give here only a few typical illus-
trations, and to indicate the chief lines only of the
subject.

PeUj/ Trades in Great Britain.

As far as I know, there are in this country no statistics
as to the exact numbers of workers engaged in the
domestic trades, the rural industries, and the petty
trades. The whole subject has never received the

134 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

attention bestowed upon it in Germany, and especially
in Russia. And yet we can guess that even in this
country of great industries, the numbers of those who
earn their livelihood in the petty trades most probably
equal, if they do not surpass, the numbers of those
employed in the factories.* We know, at any rate, that
the suburbs of London, Glasgow, and other great cities
swarm with small workshops, and there are regions where
the petty trades are as developed as they are in Switzer-
land or in Germany. Sheffield is a well-known example
in point. The Sheffield cutlery — one of the glories of
England — is not made by machinery : it is chiefly made
by hand. There are at Sheffield a few firms which
manufacture cutlery right through from the making of
steel to the finishing of tools, and employ wage-workers ;
and yet even these firms — I am told by Edward Car-
penter, who kindly collected for me information about
the Sheffield trade — let out some .part of their work to
the " small masters ". But by far the greatest number
of the cutlers work in their homes with their relatives,
or in small workshops supplied with wheel-power, which
they rent for a few shillings a week. Immense yards
are covered with buildings, which are subdivided into
numbers of small workshops. Some of these cover but
a few square yards, and there I saw smiths hammering,
all the day long, blades of knives on a small anvil, close
by the blaze of their fires ; occasionally the smith may
have one helper, or two. In the upper storeys scores of
small workshops are supplied with wheel-power, and
in each of them, three, four, or five workers and a
" master " fabricate, with the occasional aid of a few
plain machines, every description of tools : files, saws,

* We find it stated in various economic works that there are nearly
1,000,000 workers employed in the big factories of England alone, and
1,047,000 employed in the petty trades — the various trades connected
with food (bakers, butchers, and so on) and the building trades being
included in the last figure. But I do not know how far these figures are
reliable.

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 1 35

blades of knives, razors, and so on. Grinding and glaz-
ing are done in other small workshops, and even steel
is cast in a small foundry, the working staff of which
consists only of five or six men. When walking through
these workshops I easily imagined myself in a Russian
cutlery village, like Pavlovo or Vorsma. The Sheffield
cutlery has thus maintained its olden organisation, and
the fact is the more remarkable as the earnings of the
cutlers are low as a rule; but, even when reduced to a
few shillings a week, the cutler prefers to vegetate on his
small earnings than to enter as a waged labourer in a
" house ". The spirit of the old trade organisations,
which were so much spoken of five-and-twenty years
ago, is thus still alive.

Until lately, Leeds and its environs were also the
seat of extensive domestic industries. When Edward
Baines wrote, in 1857, his first account of the Yorkshire
industries (in Th. Baines's Yorkshire, Past and Present),
most of the woollen cloth which was made in that region
was woven by hand.* Twice a week the hand-made
cloth was brought to the Clothiers' Hall, and by noon
it was sold to the merchants, who had it dressed in their
factories. Joint-stock mills were run by combined
clothiers in order to prepare and spin the wool, but it
was woven in the hand-looms by the clothiers and the
members of their families. Twelve years later the hand-
loom was superseded to a great extent by the power-
loom; but the clothiers, who were anxious to maintain
their independence, resorted to a peculiar organisation :
they rented a room, or part of a room, and sometimes also
the power-looms in a workshop, and they worked inde-
pendently — a characteristic organisation partly main-
tained until now, and well adapted to illustrate the

* Nearly one-half of the 43,000 operatives who were employed at
that time in the woollen trade of this country were weaving in hand-
looms. So also one-fifth of the 79,000 persons employed in the worsted
trade.

136 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

efforts of the petty traders to keep their ground, not-
withstanding the competition of the factory. And it
must be said that the triumphs of the factory were too
often achieved only by means of the most fraudulent
adulteration and the underpaid labour of the children.
Cotton warp became quite usual in goods labelled " pure
wool," and " shoddy "■ — i.e., wool combed out of old rags
gathered all over the Continent and formerly used only
for blankets fabricated for the Indians in America —
became of general use. In these kinds of goods the
factories excelled. And yet there are branches of the
woollen trade where hand-work is still the rule, especi-
ally in the fancy goods which continually require new
adaptations for temporary demands. Thus, not farther
than in 1881 the hand-looms of Leeds were pretty well
occupied with the fabrication of woollen imitations of
sealskins.

The variety of domestic industries carried on in the
Lake District is much greater than might be expected,
but they still wait for careful explorers. I will only
mention the hoop-makers, the basket trade, the charcoal-
burners, the bobbin-makers, the small iron furnaces
working with charcoal at Backbarrow, and so on.* As
a whole, we do not well know the petty trades of this
country, and therefore we sometimes come across quite
unexpected facts. Few continental writers on industrial
topics would guess, indeed, that nails are still made by
hand by thousands of men, women, and children in the
Black Country of South Staffordshire, as also in Derby-
shire,t or that the best needles are made by hand at
Redditch. Chains are also made by hand at Dudley
and Cradley, and although the press is periodically moved
to speak of the wretched condition of the chain-makers,
men and women, the trade still maintains itself; while
nearly 7000 men are busy in their small workshops in

* E. Roscoe's notes in the English Illustrated Magazine, May, 1884.
f Bevan's Guide to English Industries.

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 1 37

making locks, even of the plainest description, at Wal-
sall, Wolverhampton, and Willenhall. The various
ironmongeries connected with horse-clothing — bits,
spurs, bridles, and so on — are also largely made by hand
at Walsall.

The Birmingham gun and rifle trades, which also
belong to the same domain of small industries, are well
known. As to the various branches of dress, there are
still important divisions of the United Kingdom where
a variety of domestic trades connected with dress is
carried on on a large scale. I need only mention the
cottage industries of Ireland, as also some of them which
have survived in the shires of Buckingham, Oxford,
and Bedford ; hosiery is a common occupation in the
villages of the counties of Nottingham and Derby ; and
several great London firms send out cloth to be made
into dress in the villages of Sussex and Hampshire.
Woollen hosiery is at home in the villages of Leicester,
and especially in Scotland ; straw-plaiting and hat-
making in many parts of the country ; while at
Northampton, Leicester, Ipswich, and Stafford shoe-
making was, till quite lately, a widely spread domestic
occupation, or was carried on in small workshops ; even
at Norwich it remains a petty trade to some extent,
notwithstanding the competition of the factories. It
must also be said that the recent appearance of large
boot and shoe factories has considerably increased the
numbers of girls and women who sew the " uppers,"
either in their own houses or in sweaters' workshops.

The petty trades are thus an important factor of indus-
trial life even in Great Britain, although many of them
have gathered into the towns. But if we find in this
country so many fewer rural industries than on the
Continent, we must not imagine that their disappearance
is due only to a keener competition of the factories.
The chief cause was the compulsory exodus from the
villages.

138 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

As every one knows from Thorold Roger's work,
or, at least, from Toynbee's lectures, the growth of
the factory system in England was intimately con-
nected with that enforced exodus. Whole industries,
which prospered in the country, were killed downright
by the forced clearing of estates* The workshops,
much more even than the factories, multiply wherever
they find cheap labour; and the specific feature of this
country is, that the cheapest labour — that is, the greatest
number of destitute people — is to be found in the great
cities. The agitation raised (with no result) in connec-
tion with the " Dwellings of the Poor," the " Unem-
ployed," and the " Sweating System," has fully disclosed
that characteristic feature of the economic life of Eng-
land and Scotland ; and the painstaking researches made
by Mr. Charles Booth have shown that one-quarter of
the population of London- — that is, 1,000,000 out of
3,800,000 — ^would be happy if the heads of their families
could have regular earnings of something like £1 a
week all the year round. Half of them would be
satisfied with even less than that. Cheap labour is
offered in such quantities at Whitechapel and South-
wark, and in the suburbs of all the great cities of Great
Britain, that the petty and domestic trades which are
scattered on the Continent in the villages, gather in this
country in the cities. Exact figures as to the small
industries are wanting, but a simple walk through the
suburbs of London would do much to realise the variety
of petty trades which swarm in the metropolis, and, in
fact, in all chief urban agglomerations. The evidence
given before the " Sweating System Committee " has
shown how far the furniture and ready-made clothing
palaces and the " Bonheur des Dames " bazaars of Lon-
don are often mere exhibitions of samples, or markets for
the sale of the produce of the small industries. Thou-

* Thorold Rogers, The Economic Interpretation of History ; Am,
Toynbe'e, Lectures on the Industrial Revolution in England.

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 1 39

sands of sweaters, some of them having their own
workshops, and others merely distributing work to sub-
sweaters who distribute it again amidst the destitute,
supply those palaces and bazaars with goods made in
the slums or in very small workshops. The commerce
is centralised in those bazaars — not the industry. The
furniture palaces and bazaars are thus merely playing
the part which the feudal castle formerly played in
agriculture : they centralise the profits— not the pro-
ductioiL

In reality the extension of the petty trades, side by
side with the great factories, is nothing to be wondered
at. It is an economic necessity. The absorption of
the small industries by bigger concerns is a fact, but
there is another process which is going on parallel with
the former, and which consists in the continuous creation
of new industries, usually making their start on a small
scale. Each new factory calls into existence a number
of small workshops, partly to supply its own needs and
partly to submit its produce to a further transformation.
Thus, to quote but one instance, the cotton mills have
created an immense demand for wooden bobbins and
reels, and thousands of men in the Lake District set
to manufacture them — by hand first, and later on with
the aid of some plain machinery. Only quite recently,
after years had been spent in inventing and improving
the machinery, the bobbms began to be made on a larger
scale in factories. And even yet, as the machines are
very costly, a great quantity of bobbins are made in
small workshops, with but little aid from machines,
while the factories themselves are relatively small, and
seldom employ more than fifty operatives — chiefly chil-
dren. As to the reels of irregular shape, they are still
made by hand, or partly in srnall machines continually
invented by the workers. New industries thus grow up
to supplant the old ones ; each of them passes through
a preliminary stage on a small scale before reaching

140 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

the factory stage ; and the more active the inventive
genius of a nation is, the more it has of these budding
industries. The countless small bicycle works which
have lately grown up in this country, and are supplied
with ready-made parts of the bicycle by the larger
factories, are an instance in point. As also the domes-
tic fabrication of boxes for matches, boots, hats, confec-
tionery, and so on.

Besides, the factory stimulates the birth of new petty
trades by creating new wants. The cheapness of cottons
and woollens, of paper and brass, has created hundreds
of new small industries. Our households are full of
their produce — mostly things of quite modera invention.
And while some of them already are turned out by the
million in the factory, all have passed through the small
workshop stage before the demand was great enough
to require the factory organisation. The more we may
have of new inventions, the more shall we have of such
small industries ; and again, the more we have of them,
the more shall we have of the inventive genius, the
want of which is so justly complained of in this country
(by W. Armstrong, amongst many others). We must
not wonder, therefore, if we see so many small trades in
this country ; but we must regret that the great number
have abandoned the villages in consequence of the bad
conditions of land tenure, and that they have migrated
in such numbers to the cities, to the detriment of
agriculture.

Petty Trades in France.

Small industries are met with in France in a very
great variety, and they represent a most important
feature of national economy. It is estimated, in fact,
that while one-half of the population of France live
upon agriculture, and one-fourth upon industry, this
fourth part is equally distributed between the great

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 141

industry and the small ones, which last would thus
occupy about 1,500,000 workers and support 4,000,000
to 5,000,000 persons. A considerable number of
peasants who resort to small industries without aban-
doning agriculture would have to be added to the just-
mentioned items, and the additional earnings which these
peasants find in industry are so important that in several
parts of France peasant proprietorship could not be
maintained without the aid derived from the rural
industries.

The small peasants know what they have to expect
the day they become factory hands in a town ; and
so long as they have not been dispossessed by the
money-lender of their lands and houses, and so long as
the village rights in the communal grazing grounds or
woods have not been lost, they cling to a combination
of industry with agriculture. Having, in most cases^
no horses to plough the land, they resort to an arrange-
ment which is widely spread, if not universal, among
small French landholders, even in purely rural districts
(I saw it even in Haute-Savoie). One of the peasants
who keeps a plough and a team of horses, tills all the
fields in turn. At the same time, owing to a wide
maintenance of the communal spirit, which I have de-
scribed elsewhere,* further support is found in the
communal shepherd, the communal wine-press, and
various forms of " aids " amongst the peasants. And
wherever the village-community spirit is maintained the
small industries persist, while no effort is spared to bring
the small plots under higher culture.

Market-gardening and fruit culture often go hand
in hand with small industries. And wherever well-
being is found on a relatively unproductive soil, it is
nearly always due to a combination of the two sister
arts.

* Nineteenth Century, Mafch, iSg6,

142 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

The most wonderful adaptations of the small indus-
tries to new requirements, and substantial technical
progress in the methods of production, can be noted
at the same time. It may even be said of France, as
it has been said of Russia, that when a rural industry-
dies out, the cause of its decay is found much less in
the competition of rival factories — in hundreds of
localities the small industry undergoes a complete modi-
fication, or it changes its character in such cases — than
in the decay of the population as agriculturists. Con-
tinually we see that only when the small landholders
have been ruined, as such, by a group of causes — ^the
loss of communal meadows, or abnormally high rents,
or the havoc made in some locality by the marckands
de biens (swindlers enticing the peasants to buy land
for credit), or the bankruptcy of some shareholders'
company whose shares had been eagerly taken by the
peasants * — do they abandon both the land and the
rural industry and emigrate towards the towns. Other-
wise, a new industry always grows up when the com-
petition of the factory becomes too acute — a wonderful,
hardly suspected adaptability being displayed by the
small industries ; or else the rural artisans resort to some
form of intensive farming, gardening, etc., and in the
meantime some other industry makes its appearance.

It is evident that in most textile industries the power-
loom supersedes the hand-loom, and the factory takes,
or has taken already, the place of the cottage industry.
Cottons, plain linen, and machine-made lace are now
produced at such a low cost by machinery, that hand-
weaving evidently becomes an anachronism for the
plainest descriptions of such goods. Consequently,
though there were in France, in the year 1876, 328,300
hand-looms as against 121,340 power-looms, it may
safely be taken that the number of the former has been

* See Baudrillart's hfs Populations agricoles de la France : Normandie,

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. I43

considerably reduced within the last twenty years.
However, the slowness with which this change is being
accomplished is one of the most striking features of the
present industrial organisation of the textile trades of
France.

The causes of this power of resistance of hand-loom-
weaving become especially apparent when one consults
such works as Reybaud's Le Coton, which was written
in 1863, more than thirty years ago — that is, at a time
when the cottage industries were still fully alive.
Though an ardent admirer himself of the great industries,
Reybaud faithfully noted the striking superiority of
well-being in the weavers' cottages, as compared with the
misery of the factory hands in the cities. Already, then,
the cities of St Quentin, Lille, Roubaix and Amiens
were gfreat centres for cotton-spinning mills and cotton-
weaving factories. But, at the same time, all sorts of
cottons were woven in hand-looms, in the very suburbs
of St. Quentin and in a hundred villages and hamlets
around it, to be sold for finishing in the city. And
Reybaud remarked that the horrible dwellings in town,
and the general condition of the factory hands, stood
in a wonderful contrast with the relative welfare of the
rural weavers. Nearly every one of these last had his
own house and a small field which he continued to cul-
tivate.*

Even in such a branch as the fabrication of plain
cotton velvets, in which the competition of the factories
was especially keenly felt, home-weaving was widely
spread, in 1863 and even in 1878, in the villages round
Amiens. Although the earnings of the rural weavers
were small, as a rule, the weavers preferred to keep
to their own cottages, to their own crops and to their own
cattle ; and only repeated commercial crises, as well as
several of the above-mentioned causes, hostile to the

* t-e Qotgn^ p, 170.

144 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

small peasant, compelled most of them to give up the
struggle, and to seek employment in the factories, while
part of them have, by this time, again returned to
agriculture or taken to market-gardening.

Another important centre for rural industries was
in the neighbourhood of Rouen, where no less than
110,000 persons were employed, in 1863, in weaving
cottons for the finishing factories of that city. In the
valley of the Andelle, in the department of Eure, each
village was at that time an industrial bee-hive ; each
streamlet was utilised for setting into work a small
factory. Reybaud described the condition of the
peasants who combined agriculture with work at the
rural factory as most satisfactory, especially in com-
parison with the condition of the slum-dwellers at
Rouen, and he even mentioned a case or two in which
the village factories belonged to the village communities.

Seventeen years later, Baudrillart * depicted the same
region in very much the same words ; and although the
rural factories had had to yield to a great extent before
the big factories, the rural industry was still valued as
showing a yearly production of 85,000,000 francs

(;£"2,400,000).

At the present time, the factories must have made
further progress ; but we still see from the excellent
descriptions of M. Ardouin Dumazet, whose work will
have in the future almost the same value as Arthur
Young's Travels,'\ that a considerable portion of the
rural weavers has still survived ; while at the same time
one invariably meets, even nowadays, with the remark
that relative well-being is prominent in the villages
in which weaving is connected with agriculture. All
taken, we must, however, say that in northern France,
where cottons are fabricated on a large scale in factory

* Les Populations agricoles de la France : Normandie.
t Voyage en France, Paris, 1893-7 (Berget-L?Yre?u, publishers),
10 volS;

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. I4S

towns, hand-weaving in the villages is nearly gone.
But things have a different aspect when we take other
regions of France, where other industries prevail.

Taking the region situated between Rouen in the
north-east, Orleans in the south-east, Rennes in the
north-west, and Nantes in the south-west, that is, the
old provinces of Normandy, Perche and Maine, and
partly Touraine and Anjou, as they were seen by Ar-
douin Dumazet in 1895, we find there quite a variety
of domestic and petty industries, both in the villages
and in the towns.

At Laval (to the south-east of Rennes), where drills
(coutils) were formerly woven out of flax in hand-looms,
and at Alengon, formerly a great centre for the cottage-
weaving of linen, as well as for hand-made lace, Ardouin
Dumazet found both the house and the factory linen
industry in a lingering state. Cotton takes the lead.
Drills are now made out of cotton in the factories, and
the demand for flax goods is very small. Both domestic
and factory weaving of flax goods are accordingly in a
poor condition. The cottagers abandon that branch of
weaving, and the large factories which had been erected
at Alenfon, with the intention of creating a flax and
hemp-cloth industry, had to be closed. Only one fac-
tory, occupying 250 hands, remains ; while nearly
23,000 weavers who found occupation at Mans, Fresnay
and Alengon in hemp cloths and fine linen had to
abandon that industry. Those who worked in factories
have emigrated to other towns, while those who had not
broken with agriculture reverted to it. In this struggle of
cotton versus flax and hemp, the former was victorious.

As to lace, it is made in such quantities by ma-
chinery at Calais, Caudry, St. Quentin and Tarare that
only high-class artistic lace-making continues on a small
scale at Alengon itself, but it still remains a by-occupation
in the surrounding country. Besides, at Flers, and at
Ferte Mace (a small town to the south of the former),

10

146 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

hand-weaving is still carried on in about 54°° hand-
looms, although the whole trade, in factories and villages
alike, is in a piteous state since the Spanish markets
have been lost. Spain has now plenty of her own cotton
mills. Twelve big spinning mills at Coud^ (where 4000
tons of cotton were spun in 1883) were abandoned in
1 893, and the workers were thrown into a most miserable
condition.*

On the contrary, in an industry which supplies the
home market, namely in the fabrication of linen hand-
kerchiefs, which itself is of a quite recent growth, we
see that cottage-weaving is, even now, in full prosperity.
Cholet (in Maine-et-Loire, south-west of Angers) is the
centre of that trade. It has one spinning mill and one
weaving mill, but both employ considerably fewer hands
than domestic weaving, which is spread in no less than
200 villages of the surrounding region.t Neither at
Rouen nor in the industrial cities of Northern France
are so many linen handkerchiefs fabricated as in this
region in hand-looms, we are told by Ardouin Dumazet.

Within the curve made by the Loire as it flows past
Orleans we find another prosperous centre of domestic
industries connected with cottons. " From Romorantin
[in Loire-et-Cher, south of Orleans] to Argenton and
Le Blanc," the same writer says, " we have one immense
workshop where handkerchiefs are embroidered, and
shirts, cuffs, collars and all sorts of ladies' linen are sewn
or embroidered. There is not one house, even in the
tiniest hamlets, where the women would not be occupied
in that trade . . . and if this work is a mere fasse-
temps in vine-growing regions, here it has become the
chief resource of the population." + Even at Romo-
rantin itself, where 400 women and girls are employed in
one factory, there are more than 1000 women who sew

* Ardouin Dumazet, vol. ii., p. 167.

f In Maine-et-Loire, la Vendue, Loire Inftrieure, and Deux-Sevre»,

J Ardouin Dumazet, vol. i., p. 117 et seq.

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. I47

linen in their houses. The same must be said of a group
of industrial villages, peopled with clothiers in the neigh-
bourhood of another Normandy city, Elboeuf. When
Baudrillart visited them in 1878-80, he was struck with
the undoubted advantages offered by a combination
of agriculture with industry. Clean houses, clean dresses,
and a general stamp of well-being were characteristic of
these villages.

Happily enough, weaving is not the only small in-
dustry of both this region and Brittany. On the con-
trary, scores of other small industries enliven the
villages and burgs. At Foug^res (in Ille-et-Vilaine, to
the north-east of Reims) one sees how the factory has
contributed to the development of various small and
domestic trades. In 1830 this town was a great centre
for the domestic fabrication of the so-called chaussons
de tresse. The competition of the prisons killed, how-
ever, this primitive industry ; but it was soon substituted
by the fabrication of soft socks in felt {chaussons de
feutre). This last industry also went down, and then the
fabrication of boots and shoes was introduced, this last
giving origin, in its turn, to the boot and shoe factories,
of which there are now thirty-three at Fougferes, em-
ploying 8000 workers (yearly production about 5,000,000
pairs). But at the same time domestic industries took a
new development. Thousands of women are employed
now in their houses in sewing the " uppers " and in
embroidering fancy shoes. Moreover, quite a number
of smaller workshops grew up in the neighbourhood,
for the fabrication of cardboard boxes, wooden heels,
and so on, as well as a number of tanneries, big and
small. And M. Ardouin Dumazet's remark is, that one
is struck to find owing to these industries an un-
doubtedly higher level of well-being in the villages —
quite unforeseen in the centre of this purely agricultural
region.*

* Vol. v., p. 270.

148 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

In Brittany, in the neighbourhood of QuimperM, a
great number of small workshops for the fabrication of
the felt hats which are worn by the peasants is scattered
in the villages ; and rapidly improving agriculture goes
hand in hand with that trade. Well-being is a dis-
tinctive feature of these villages.* At Hennebout (on
the southern coast of Brittany) 1400 workers are em-
ployed in an immense factory in the fabrication of tins
for preserves, and every year twenty-two to twenty-
three tons of iron are transformed into steel, and next
into tins, which are sent to Paris, Bordeaux, Nantes, and
so on. But the factory has created " quite a world of
tiny workshops " in this purely agricultural region :
small tin-ware workshops, tanneries, potteries, and so
on, while the slags are transformed in small workshops
into manure. Agriculture and industry go here hand
in hand, the importance of not severing the union being
perhaps best seen at Louddac, a small town in the midst
of Brittany (department of C6tes-du-Nord). Formerly
the villages in this neighbourhood were industrial, all
hamlets being peopled with weavers who fabricated the
well-known Brittany linen. Now, this industry having
-very much gone down, the weavers have simply returned
to the soil. Out of an industrial town, Louddac has
become an agricultural market town ; t and, what is
most interesting, these populations conquer new lands
for agriculture and turn the formerly quite unproductive
landes into rich corn fields ; while on the northern coast
of Brittany, around Dol, on land which began to be
conquered from the sea in the twelfth century, market-
gardening is now carried on to a very great extent for
export to England. Altogether, it is striking to observe,
on perusing M. Ardouin Dumazet's little volumes, how
domestic industries go hand in hand with all sorts of small
industries in agriculture — gardening, poultry-farming,

•Ardouin Dumazet, vol. v., p. 215.
\Ibid., vol. v., pp. 259-266.

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 1 49

fabrication of fruit preserves, and so on, and how all sorts
of associations for sale and export are easily introduced.
Mans is, as known, a great centre for the export of
geese and all sorts of poultry to England.

Part of Normandy (namely, the departments of Eure
and Orne) is dotted with small workshops where all
sorts of small brass goods and hardware are still fabri-
cated in the villages. Of course, the domestic fabrication
of pins is nearly gone, and as for needles, polishing
only, in a very primitive form, has been maintained
in the villages. But all sorts of small hardware,
including nails, lockets, etc., in great variety, are fabri-
cated in the villages, especially round Laigle. Stays are
also sewn in small workshops in many villages, notwith-
standing the competition of prison work.*

Tinchebrai (to the west of Flers) is a real centre for
a great variety of smaller goods in iron, mother-of-pearl
and horn. All sorts of hardware and locks are fabri-
cated by the peasants during the time they can spare
from agriculture, and real works of art, some of which
were much admired at the exhibition of 1889, are pro-
duced by these humble peasant sculptors in horn,
mother-of-pearl and iron. Farther south, the polishing
of marble goods is carried on in numbers of small work-
shops scattered round Solesmes and grouped round one
central establishment where marble pieces are roughly
shaped with the aid of steam, to be finished in the small
village workshops. At Sabl^ the workers in that branch,
who all own their houses and gardens, enjoy a real well-
being especially noticed by our traveller, t

In the woody regions of the Perche and the Maine
we find all sorts of wooden industries which evidently
could only be maintained owing to the communal pos-
session of the woods. Near the forest of Perseigne there

* I gave, a few years ago, some information about French prison work
in a book, In Russian and French Prisons, London, 1888,
t Ardouin Dumazet, vol. ii., p. 51.

I50 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

is a small burg, Fresnaye, which is entirely peopled with
workers in wood.

" There is not one house," Ardouin Dumazet writes, " in which
wooden goods would not be fabricated. Some years ago there was little
variety in their produce ; spoons, salt-boxes, shepherds' boxes, scales,
various wooden pieces for weavers, flutes and hautboys, spindles, wooden
measures, funnels, and wooden bowls were only made. But Paris wanted
to have a thousand things in which wood was combined with iron :
mouse-traps, cloak-pegs, spoons for jam, brooms. . . . And now every
house has a workshop containing either a turning-lathe, or some machine-
tools for chopping wood, for making lattice-work, and so on. . . . Quite
a new industry was born, and the most coquettish things are now
fabricated. Owing to this industry the population is happy. The earn-
ings are not high, but each worker owns his house and garden, and
occasionally a bit of field." *

At Neufchitel wooden shoes are made, and the hamlet,
we are told, has a most smiling aspect. To every house
a garden is attached, and none of the misery of big cities
is to be seen. At Jupilles and in the surrounding country
other varieties of wooden goods are produced : tapes,
boxes of different kinds, together with wooden shoes ;
while at the forest of Vibraye two workshops have been
erected for turning out umbrella handles by the million
for all France. One of these workshops having been
founded by a worker sculptor, he has invented and intro-
duced in his workshop the most ingenious machine-tools.
About 1 50 men work at this factory ; but it is evident
that half a dozen smaller workshops, scattered in the
villages, would have answered equally well.

Going now over to a quite different region — the
Nifevre, in the centre of France, and Haute Marne, in
the east — ^we find that both regions are great centres
for a variety of small industries, some of which are
maintained by associations of workers, while others have
grown up in the shadow of factories. The small iron
workshops which formerly covered the country have not
disappeared : they have undergone a transformation ;

*Vol. i., pp. 305, 306.

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. IS I

and now the country is covered with small workshops
where agricultural machinery, chemical produce, and
pottery are fabricated ; " one ought to go as far as
Gudrigny and Fourchambault to find the great in-
dustry ; " * while a number of small workshops for the
fabrication of a variety of hardware flourish by the side
of, and owing to the proximity of, the industrial centres.
Pottery makes the fortune of the valley of the Loire
about Nevers. High-class art pottery is made in this
town, while in the villages plain pottery is fabricated
and exported by merchants who go about with their
boats, selling it. At Gien a large factory of china buttons
(made out of felspar-powder cemented with milk) has
lately been established, and employs 1 500 workmen, who
produce from 3500 to 4500 lb. of buttons every day.
And, as is often the case, part of the work is done in
the villages. For many "miles on both banks of the
Loire, in all villages, old people, women and children sew
the buttons to the cardboard pieces. Of course, that
sort of work is wretchedly paid ; but it is resorted to
only because there is no other sort of industry in the
neighbourhood to which the peasants could give their
leisure time.

In the same region of the Haute Marne, especially
in the neighbourhood of Nogent, we find cutlery as a
by-occupation to agriculture. Landed property is very
much subdivided in that part of France, and great
numbers of peasants own but from two to three acres
per family, or even less. Consequently, in thirty villages
round Nogent, about 5000 men are engaged in cutlery,
chiefly of the highest sort (artistic knives are occasion-
ally sold at as much as £20 a piece), while the lower sorts
are fabricated in the neighbourhoods of Thiers, in Puy-
de-D6me (Auvergne). The Nogent industry has de-
veloped spontaneously without any aid from without,

* Ardouin Dumazet, vol. i., p. 52.

1 52 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

and in its technical part it shows considerable progress ; *
while at Thiers, where the cheapest sorts of cutlery are
made, the division of labour, the cheapness of rent for
small workshops supplied with motive power from the
Durolle river, or from small gas motors, the aid of a
great variety of specially invented machine-tools, and the
existing combination of machine-work with hand-work
have resulted in such a perfection of the technical part
of the trade that it is considered doubtful whether the
factory system could further economise labour.! For
twelve miles round Thiers, in each direction, all the
streamlets are dotted with small workshops, in which
peasants, who continue to cultivate their fields, are at
work.

Basket-making is again an important cottage industry
in several parts of France, namely in Aisne and in
Haute Marne. In this last department, at Villaines,
every one is a basket-maker, " and all the basket-makers
belong to a co-operative society," Ardouin Dumazet re-
marks. + " There are no employers ; all the produce is
brought once a fortnight to the co-operative stores and
there it is sold for the association. About 150 families
belong to it, and each owns a house and some vineyards."
At Fays-Billot, also in Haute Marne, 1500 basket-
makers also belong to an association ; while at Thi6-
rache, where several thousand men are engaged in the
same trade, no association has been formed, the earnings
being in consequence extremely low.

Another very important centre of petty trades is
the French Jura, or the French part of the Jura Moun-
tains, where the watch trade has attained, as known,
a high development. When I visited these villages

* Prof. Issaieff in the Russian Memoirs of the Petty Trades Commission
{Trudy Kustarnoi Kommissii), vol. v.

t Knives are sold at from 6s. 4d. to 8s. per gross, and razors at 3s. 3d.
per gross — " for export "

J Ardouin Dumazet, vol. i., p. 213 ct setj.

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 153

between the Swiss frontier and Besangon in the year
1878, I was struck by the high degree of relative well-
being which I could observe, even though I was perfectly
well acquainted with the Swiss villages in the Val de
Saint Imier. It is very probable that the machine-made
watches have brought about a crisis in French watch-
making as they have in Switzerland. But it is known
that part, at least, of the Swiss watch-makers have strenu-
ously fought against the necessity of being enrolled in
the factories, and that while watch factories grew up
at Geneva and elsewhere, considerable numbers of the
watch-makers have taken to divers other trades which
continue to be carried on as domestic or small industries.
I must only add that in the French Jura great numbers
of watch-makers were at the same time owners of their
houses and gardens, very often of bits of fields, and
especially of communal meadows, and that the communal
fruitieres, or creameries for the common sale of butter
and cheese, are widely spread in that part of France.

So far as I could ascertain, the development of the
machine-made watch industry has not destroyed the
small industries of the Jura hills. The watch-makers
have taken to new branches, and, as in Switzerland, they
have created various new industries. From Ardouin
Dumazet's travels we can, at any rate, borrow an insight
into the present state of the southern part of this region.
In the neighbourhoods of Nantua and Cluse silks are
woven in nearly all villages, the peasants giving to
weaving their spare time from agriculture, while quite a
number of small workshops (mostly less than twenty
looms, one of 100 looms) are scattered in the little
villages, on the streamlets running from the hills.
Scores of small saw-mills have also been built along the
streamlet Merloz, for the fabrication of all sorts of little
pretty things in wood. At Oyonnax, a small town on
the Ain, we have a big centre for the fabrication of
combs, an industry more than 200 years old, which took

154 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

a new development since the last war through the inven-
tion of celluloid. No less than lOO or 120 "masters"
employ from two to fifteen workers each, while over
1200 persons work in their houses, making combs out of
Irish horn and French celluloid. Wheel-power was
formerly rented in small workshops, but electricity,
generated by a waterfall, has lately been introduced,
and is now distributed in the houses for bringing into
motion small motors of from one-quarter to twelve
horse-power. And it is remarkable to notice that as
soon as electricity gave the possibility to return to do-
mestic work 300 workers left at once the small work-
shops and took to work in their houses. Most of these
workers have their own cottages and gardens, and they
show a very interesting spirit of association. They have
also erected four workshops for making cardboard boxes,
and their production is valued at 2,000,000 fr. every year.*
At St. Claude, which is a great centre for briar pipes
(sold in large quantities in London with English trade-
marks, and therefore eagerly bought by those Frenchmen
who visit London, as a souvenir from the other side of
the Channel), big and small workshops, both supplied
by motive force from the Tacon streamlet, prosper by the
side of each other. Over 4000 men and women are
employed in this trade, while all sorts of small by-trad,=s
have grown by its side (amber and horn mouth-pieces,
sheaths, etc.). Countless small workshops are busy
besides, on the banks of the two streams, with the fabri-
cation of all sorts of wooden things : match-boxes, beads,
sheaths for spectacles, small things in horn, and so on,
to say nothing of a large factory (200 workers) where
metric measures are fabricated for the whole world.
At the same time thousands of persons in St. Claude, in
the neighbouring villages and in the smallest mountain
hamlets, are busy in cutting diamonds (an industry only

* Ardouin Dumazet, vol. viii. , p. 40.

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. ISS

fifteen years old in this region), and other thousands are
busy in cutting various less precious stones. All this
is done in quite small workshops supplied by water-
power. The extraction of ice from some lakes and the
gathering of oak-bark for tanneries complete the picture
of these busy villages, where industry joins hands with
agriculture, and modern machines and appliances are so
well put in the service of the small workshops.

Finally, omitting a mass of small trades, I will only
name the hat-makers of the Loire, the stationery of the
Ard^che, the fabrication of hardware in the Doubs, the
glove-makers of the Is^re, the broom and brush-makers
of the Oise (valued at ;£^8oo,ooo per annum), and the
house machine-knitting in the neighbourhoods of Troyes.
But I must say a few words more about two important
centres of small industries : the Lyons region and Paris.

At the present time the industrial region of which
Lyons is the centre * includes the departments of Rh8ne,
Loire, Drdme, Sa6ne-et-Loire, Ain, the southern part of
the Jura department, and the western part of Savoy,
as far as Annecy, while the silkworm is reared as far as
the Alps, the Cdvennes Mountains, and the neighbour-
hoods of Mclcon. It contains, besides fertile plains,
large hilly tracts, also very fertile as a rule, but covered
with snow during part of the winter, and the rural popu-
lations are therefore bound to resort to some industrial
occupation in addition to agriculture ; they find it in
silk-weaving and various small industries. Altogether
it may be said that the region lyonnaise is characterised
as a separate centre of French civilisation and art, and
that a remarkable spirit of research, discovery and in-
vention has developed there in all directions — scientific
and industrial.

The Croix Rousse at Lyons, where the silk-weavers

* For further details see Appendix 0.

IS6 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

(canuts) have their chief quarters, is the centre of that
industry, and in 1895 the whole of that hill, thickly
covered with houses, five, six, eight and ten storeys
high, resounded with the noise of the looms which were
busily going in every apartment of that big agglomera-
tion. Electricity has lately been brought into the ser-
vice of this domestic industry, supplying motive power
to the looms.

To the south of Lyons, in the city of Vienne, hand-
weaving is disappearing. " Shoddy " is now the lead-
ing produce, and twenty-eight concerns only remain
out of the 120 fabriques which existed thirty years ago.
Old woollen rags, rags of carpets, and all the dust from
the carding and spinning in the wool and cotton factories
of Northern France, with a small addition of cotton,
are transformed here into cloth which flows from Vienne
to all the big cities of France — 20,000 yards of " shoddy "
every day — to supply the ready-made clothing factories.
Hand-weaving has evidently nothing to do in that in-
dustry, and only 1300 hand-looms are now at work out
of the 4000 which were in motion ten years ago. Large
factories, employing a total of 1800 workers, have taken
the place of these hand-weavers, while " shoddy " has
taken the place of cloth. All sorts of flannels, felt hats,
tissues of horse-hair, and so on, are fabricated at the
same time. But while the great factory thus conquered
the city of Vienne, its suburbs and its nearest surround-
ings became the centre of a prosperous gardening and
fruit culture, which has already been mentioned in
chapter iv. The banks of the Rhdne, between Ampuis
and Condrieu, are one of the wealthiest parts of all
France, owing to the shrubberies and nurseries, market-
gardening, fruit-growing, vine-growing and cheese-mak-
ing out of goats' milk. House industries go there hand
in hand with an intelligent culture of the soil ; Condrieu,
for instance, is a famous centre for embroidery, which is
made partly by hand, as of old, and partly by machinery.

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 1 57

In the west of Lyons, at I'Arbresles, factories have
grown up for making silks and velvets ; but a large part
of the population still continue to weave in their houses ;
while farther west, Panissiferes is the centre of quite a
number of villages in which linen and silks are woven as
a domestic industry. Not all these workers own their
houses, but those, at least, who own or rent a small piece
of land or garden, or keep a couple of cows, are said to
be well off, and the land, as a rule, is said to be admir-
ably cultivated by these weavers.

The chief industrial centre of this part of the Lyons
region is certainly Tarare. Thirty years ago, when Rey-
baud wrote his excellent work, Le Colon, it was a centre
for the manufacture of muslins and it occupied in this in-
dustry the same position as Leeds formerly occupied in
this country in the woollen cloth trade. The spinning mills
and the large finishing factories were at Tarare, while
the weaving of the muslins and the embroidery of the
same were made in the surrounding villages, especially
in the hilly tracts of the Beaujolais and the Forez.
Each peasant house, each farm and metayerie were small
workshops at that time, and one could see, Reybaud
wrote, the lad of twenty embroidering fine muslin after
he had finished cleaning the farm stables, without the
work suffering in its delicacy from a combination of two
such varied pursuits. On the contrary, the delicacy of
the work and the extreme variety of patterns were a dis-
tinctive feature of the Tarare muslins and a cause of their
success. All testimonies agreed at the same time in re-
cognising that, while agriculture found support in the
industry, the agricultural population enjoyed a relative
well-being.

By this time the industry has undergone a thorough
transformation, but still no less than 60,000 persons,
representing a population of about 250,000 souls, work
for Tarare in the hilly tracts, weaving all sorts of muslins
for all parts of the world, and they earn every year

IS8 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

;^48o,ooo in this way. Amplepuis, notwithstanding its
own factories of silks and its wonderful apricot culture,
remains one of the local centres for such muslins ; while
close by, Thizy is a centre for a variety of linings, flannels,
" Peruvian serges," " oxfords," and other mixed woollen-
and-cotton stuffs which are woven in the mountains by
the peasants. No less than 3000 hand-looms are thus
scattered in twenty-two villages, and about ;£'6oo,ooo
worth of various stuffs are woven every year by the
rural weavers in this neighbourhood alone ; while
15,000 power-looms are at work in both Thizy and the
great city of Roanne, in which two towns all varieties
of cottons (linings, flannelettes, apron cloth) and silk
blankets are woven in factories by the million yards.
At Cours, 1600 workers are employed in making
" blankets," chiefly- of the lowest sort (even such as are
sold at 2s. and even lod. a piece, for export to Brazil);
all possible and imaginable rags and sweepings from
all sorts of textile factories (jute, cotton, flax, hemp, wool
and silk) are used for that industry, in which the factory
is, of course, fully victorious. But even at Roanne,
where the fabrication of cottons has attained a great
degree of perfection and 9000 power-looms are at work,
producing every year more than 30,000,000 yards —
even at Roanne one finds with astonishment that do-
mestic industries are not dead, but yield every year the
respectable amount of more than 10,000,000 yards of
stuffs. At the same time, in the neighbourhood of that
big city the industry of fancy-knitting has taken within
the last thirty years a sudden development. Only 2000
women were employed in it in 1864, but their numbers
are now estimated at 20,000 ; and, without abandoning
their rural work, they find time to knit, with the aid of
small knitting-machines, all sorts of fancy articles in
wool, the annual value of which is estimated at
;£'36o,ooo.*

* Ardouin Dumazet, vol. viii., p. 266.

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 1 59

It must not be thought, however, that textiles and
connected trades are the only small industries in this
locality. Scores of various rural industries continue
to exist besides, and in nearly all of them the methods
of production are continually improved. Thus, when
the rural making of plain chairs became unprofitable,
articles of luxury and stylish chairs began to be fabri-
cated in the villages, and similar transformations are
found everywhere.

More details about this extremely interesting region
will be found in the Appendix, but one remark must be
made in this place. Notwithstanding its big industries
and coal mines this part of France has entirely main-
tained its rural aspect, and is now one of the best cul-
tivated parts of the country. What most deserves
admiration is — not so much the development of the great
industries, which, after all, here as elsewhere, are to a
great extent international in their origins — as the creative
and inventive powers and capacities of adaptation which
appear amongst the great mass of these industrious popu-
lations. At every step, in the field, in the garden, in the
orchard, in the dairy, in the industrial arts, in the hun-
dreds of small inventions in these arts, one sees the
creative genius of the folk. In these regions one best
understands why France, taking the mass of its popula-
tion, is considered the richest country of Europe.*

The chief centre for petty trades in France is, how-
ever, Paris. There we find, by the side of the large
factories, the greatest variety of petty trades for the
fabrication of goods of every description, both for the
home market and for export. The petty trades at
Paris so much prevail over the factories that the average
number of workmen employed in the 98,000 factories and
workshops of Paris is less than six, while the number of

* Some further details about the Lyons region and St. Etienne are
given in Appendix O.

l60 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

persons employed in workshops which have less than
five operatives is almost twice as big as the number of
persons employed in the larger establishments* In
fact, Paris is a great bee-hive where hundreds of thou-
sands of men and women fabricate in small workshops
all possible varieties of goods which require skill, taste
and invention. These small workshops, in which artistic
finish and rapidity of work are so much praised, neces-
sarily stimulate the mental powers of the producers ;
and we may safely admit that if the Paris workmen are
generally considered, and really are, more developed
intellectually than the workers of any other European
capital, this is due to a great extent to the character
of the work they are engaged in- — a work which implies
artistic taste, skill, and especially inventiveness, always
wide awake in order to invent new patterns of goods
and steadily to increase and to perfect the technical
methods of production. It also appears very probable
that if we find a highly developed working population
in Vienna and Warsaw, this depends again to a very great
extent upon the very considerable development of similar
small industries, which stimulate invention and so much
contribute to develop the worker's intelligence.

The Galerie du travail at the Paris exhibitions is
always a most remarkable sight. One can 'appreciate
in it both the variety of the small industries which are
carried on in French towns and the skill and inventing
powers of the workers. And the question necessarily
arises : Must all this skill, all this intelligence, be swept
away by the factory, instead of becoming a new fertile
source of progress under a better organisation of pro-
duction .' must all this independence and inventiveness
of the worker disappear before the factory levelling.'

*In 1873, out of a total population of 1,851,800 inhabiting Paris,
816,040 (404,408 men and 411,632 women) were living on industry, and
out of them only 293,691 were connected with the factories (grande
Industrie), while 522,349 were living on the petty trades (petite industrie).
— Maxime du Camp, Paris et ses Organes, vol. vi.

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. l6l

and, if it must, would such a transformation be a pro-
gress, as so many economists who have only studied
figures and not human beings are ready to maintain ?

At any rate, it is quite certain that even if the ab-
sorption of the French petty trades by the big factories
were possible— which seems extremely doubtful— the ab-
sorption would not be accomplished so soon as that
The small industry of Paris fights hard for its mainten-
ance, and it shows its vitality by the numberless
machine-tools which are continually invented by the
workers for improving and cheapening the produce.

The numbers of motors which were exhibited at
the last exhibitions in the Galerie du travail bear a
testimony to the fact that a cheap motor, for the small
industry, is one of the leading problems of the day.
Motors weighing only forty-five lb., including the boiler,
were invented to answer that want. Small two-horse-
power engines, now fabricated by the engineers of the
Jura (formerly watch-makers) in their small workshops,
are another attempt to solve the problem — to say nothing
of the water, gas and electrical motors. The trans-
mission of steam-power to 230 small workshops which
was made by the Socikte des Immeubles industriels was
another attempt in the same direction, and the increasing
efforts of the French engineers for finding out the best
means of transmitting and subdividing power by means
of compressed air, " tele-dynamic cables," and electricity
are indicative of the endeavours of the small industry to
retain its ground in the face of the competition of the
factories. (See Appendix P.)

CHAPTER VII.

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES
[continued).

Petty trades in Germany : Discussions upon the subject and conclusions
arrived at — Petty trades in Russia — Conclusions.

Petty Trades in Germany.

The various industries which still have retained in
Germany the characters of petty and domestic trades
have been the subject of many exhaustive explorations,
especially by A. M. Thun, and Prof. Issaieff, on behalf
of the Russian Petty Trades Commission, Emanuel Hans
Sax, Paul Voigt, and very many others. By this time
the subject has a bulky literature, and such impressive
and suggestive pictures have been drawn from life for
different regions and trades that I felt tempted to sum
up these life-true descriptions. However, as in such a
summary I should have to repeat much of what has
already been said and illustrated in the preceding chap-
ter, it will probably more interest the general reader to
know something about the conclusions which can be
drawn from the works of the German investigators.*

Unhappily, the discussion upon this important sub-
ject has often taken in Germany a passionate and even
a personally aggressive character.f On the one hand

* The remarks of Prof. Issaieff — a thorough investigator of petty trades
in Russia, Germany and France — will be for me a very valuable guide in
the following. See Works of the Commission for the Study of Petty
Trades in Russia (Russian), St. Petersburg, 1879-87, vol. i.

f See K. Buecher's Preface to the Untersuchungen iiber die Lage des
Handwerk? i» J}euisckla.nd, vol. iv.

(162)

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 163

the ultra-conservative elements of German politics tried,
and succeeded to some extent, in making of the petty
trades and the domestic industries an arm for securing
a return to the " olden good times ". They even passed
a law intended to prepare a reintroduction of the old-
fashioned, closed and patriarchal corporations which
could be placed under the close supervision and tutorship
of the State, and they saw in such a law a weapon
against social democracy. On the other hand, the social
democrats, justly opposed to such measures, but them-
selves inclined, in their turn, to take too abstract a
view of economical questions, bitterly attack all those
who do not merely repeat the stereotyped phrases to the
effect that " the petty trades are in decay," and " the
sooner they disappear the better," as they will give room
to capitalist centralisation, which, according to the social
democratic creed, " will soon achieve its own ruin ".*
In this dislike of the small industries they are, of course,
at one with the economists of the orthodox school, whom
they combat on nearly all other points.

Under such conditions, the polemics about the petty

* The foundation for this creed is contained in one of the concluding
chapters of Marx's Kapital (the last but one), in which the author spoke
of the concentration of capital and saw in it the " fatality of a natural
law". In the "forties," this idea was shared by nearly all socialists,
and continually recurred in their writings. But Marx was too much of
a thinker that he should not have taken notice of the subsequent
developments of industrial life, which were not foreseen in 1848 ; if he
had lived now he surely would not have shut his eyes to the formidable
growth of the numbers of small capitalists and to the middle-class
fortunes which are made in a thousand ways under the shadow of the
modern "millionaires" Very likely he would have noticed also the
extreme slowness with which the wrecking of small industries goes on
— a slowness which could not be predicted fifty or forty years ago,
because no one could foresee at that time the facilities which have been
offered since for transport, the growing variety of demand, nor the cheap
means which are now in use for the supply of motive power in small
quantities. Being a thinker, he would have studied these facts, and very
probably he would have mitigated the absoluteness of his earlier formulae,
as in fact he did once with regard to the village community in Russia.
It would be most desirable that his followers should rely less upon
abstract, formulae — easy as they may be as watchwords in political
struggles — and try to imitate their teacher in his analysis of concref^
economical phenomena,

1 64 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

trades and the domestic industries are evidently doomed
to remain most unproductive. However, it is pleasant
to see that a considerable amount of most conscientious
work has been done for the investigation of the petty
trades in Germany; and, by the side of such mono-
graphs, from which nothing can be learned but that the
petty trades' workers are in a miserable condition, and
nothing whatever can be gathered to explain why these
workers prefer their conditions to those of factory hands
— there is no lack of such detailed monographs (such as
those of Thun, Emil Sax, Paul Voigt on the Berlin
cabinet-makers, etc.), in which one sees the whole of the
life of these classes of workers, the difficulties which they
have to cope with, and the technical conditions of the
trade, and finds all the elements for an independent
judgment upon the matter.

It is evident that a number of petty trades are already
now doomed to disappear ; but there are others, on the
contrary, which are endowed with a great vitality, and
all chances are in favour of their continuing to exist
and to take a further development for many years to
come. In the fabrication of such textiles as are woven
by millions of yards, and can be best produced with the
aid of a complicated machinery, the competition of the
hand-loom against the power-loom is evidently nothing
but a survival, which may be maintained for some time
by certain local conditions, but finally must die away.
The same is true with regard to many branches of the
iron industries, hardware fabrication, pottery, and so on.
But wherever the direct intervention of taste and in-
ventiveness are required, wherever new patterns of goods
requiring a continual renewal of machinery and tools
must continually be introduced in order to feed the
demand, as is the case with all fancy textiles, even
though they be fabricated to supply the millions ; wher-
ever a great variety of goods and the uninterrupted
invention of new ones goes on, as is the cage in the toy

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 165

trade, in instrument making, watch making, bicycle
making and so on ; and finally, wherever the artistic
feeling of the individual worker makes the best part of
his goods, as is the case in hundreds of branches of
small articles of luxury, there is a wide field for petty
trades, rural workshops, domestic industries, and the
like. More fresh air, more ideas, more general con-
ceptions are evidently required in those industries. But
where the spirit of initiative has been awakened in one
way or another, we see the petty industries taking a
new development in Germany, as we have just seen that
being done in France.

Now, in nearly all the petty trades in Germany, the
position of the workers is unanimously described as
most miserable, and the many admirers of centralisation
which we find in Germany always insist upon this misery
in order to predict, and to call for, the disappearance of
" those mediasval survivals " which " capitalist centrali-
sation " must supplant for the benefit of the worker.
The reality is, however, that when we compare the miser-
able conditions of the workers in the petty trades with
the conditions of the wage workers in the factories, in
the same regions and in the same trades, we see that the
very same misery prevails among the factory workers.
They live upon wages of from nine to eleven shillings a
week, in town slums instead of the country. They work
eleven hours a day, and they also are subject to the
extra misery thrown upon them during the frequently
recurring crises. It is only after they have undergone
all sorts of sufferings in their struggles against their
employers that some factory workers succeed, more or
less, here and there, to wrest from their employers a
" living wage " — and this again only in certain trades.

To welcome all these sufferings, seeing in them the
action of a " natural law " and a necessary step towards
the necessary concentration of industry, would be simply
absurd. While to maintain that the pauperisation of all

l66 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

workers and the wreckage of all village industries are a
necessary step towards a higher form of industrial or-
ganisation would be, not only to affirm much more than
one is entitled to affirm under the present imperfect
state of economical knowledge, but to show an
absolute want of comprehension of the sense of both
natural and economic laws. Every one, on the con-
trary, who has studied the question of the growth of
great industries on its own merits, will undoubtedly
agree with Thorold Rogers, who considered the suffer-
ings inflicted upon the labouring classes for that purpose
as having been of no necessity whatever, and simply
having been inflicted to suit the temporary interests of
the few — by no means those of the nation.*

Moreover, every one knows to what extent the labour
of children and girls is resorted to even in the most
prosperous factories — even in this country which stands
foremost in industrial development. Some figures rela-
tive to this subject were given in the preceding chapter.
And this fact is not an accident which might be easily
removed, as Maurice Block — a great admirer, of course,
of the factory system — tries to represent it.f The low
wages paid to children and youths are one of the neces-
sary elements in the cheapness of the factory produce
in all textiles, and, consequently, of the very competi-
tion of the factory with the petty trades. I have men-
tioned besides, whilst speaking of France, what are the
effects of " concentrated " industries upon village life ;
and in Thun's work, and in many others as well, one may
find enough of ghastly instances of what are the effects
of accumulations of girls in the factories. To idealise
the modern factory, in order to depreciate the so-called
" mediasval " forms of the small industries, is conse-
quently — to say the least — as unreasonable as to idealise

* The Economic Interpretation of History.

\Les Pr ogres de la Science economiqne dcpnis Adam Smith, Paris,
1890, t. i., pp. 460, 461.

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 167

the latter and try to bring- mankind back to isolated
home-spinning and home-weaving in every peasant
house.

One fact dominates all the investigations which have
been made into the conditions of the small industries.
We find it in Germany, as well as in France or in
Russia. In an immense number of trades it is not the
superiority of the technical organisation of the trade
in a factory nor the economies realised on the prime-
motor which militate against the small industry in favour
of the factories, but the more advantageous conditions
for selling the produce and for buying the raw produce
which are at the disposal of big concerns. Wherever
this difficulty has been overcome, either by means of
association or in consequence of a market being secured
for the sale of the produce, it has always been found —
first, that the conditions of the workers or artisans im-
mediately improved ; and next, that a rapid progress
was realised in the technical aspects of the respective
industries : new processes were introduced to improve the
produce or to increase the rapidity of its fabrication ;
new machine-tools were invented, or new motors were
resorted to, or the trade was reorganised so as to diminish
the costs of production. On the contrary, wherever the
helpless, isolated artisans and workers continue to re-
main at the mercy of the wholesale buyers, who always
— since Adam Smith's time — " openly or tacitly " agree
to act as one man to bring down the prices almost to
a starvation level — and such is the case for the immense
number of the small and village industries — their con-
dition is so bad that only the longing of the workers
after a certain relative independence, and their know-
ledge of what awaits them in the factory, prevent them
from joining the ranks of the factory hands. Knowing
that in most cases the advent of the factory would mean
no work at all for most men, and the taking of the
children and girls to the factory, they do the utmost to
prevent it from appearing at all in the village.

1 68 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

As to combinations in the villages, co-operation
and the like, one must never forget how jealously the
German, the French, the Russian and the Austrian Gov-
ernments have hitherto prevented the workers, and
especially the village workers, from entering into any
sorts of combinations for economical purposes. To keep
the peasant at the lowest possible level, by means of
taxation, serfdom, and the like, has been, and is still, the
policy of most continental states. It was only fourteen
years ago that some extension of the association rights
was granted in Germany, and even now a mere co-
operative association for the sale of the artisans' work
is soon reported as a " political association " and sub-
mitted as such to the usual limitations, such as the ex-
clusion of women and the like. A striking example of
that policy as regards a village association is given by
Prof. Issaieff, who also mentions the severe measures
taken by the wholesale buyers in the toy trade to prevent
the workers from entering into direct intercourse with
foreign buyers.

When one examines with more than a superficial
attention the life of the small industries and their
struggles for life, one sees that when they perish, they
perish — not because " an economy can be realised by
using a hundred horse-power motor, instead of a hun-
dred small motors " — this inconveniency never fails to
be mentioned, although it is easily obviated in Sheffield,
in Paris, and many other places by hiring workshops
with steam-power, and, still more, as was so truly ob-
served by Prof. W. Unwin, by the electric transmission
of power. They do not perish because a substantial
economy can be realised in the factory production — in
many more cases than is usually supposed, the fact is
even the reverse — but because the capitalist who estab-
lishes a factory emancipates himself from the wholesale
and retail dealers in raw materials ; and especially,
because he emancipates himself from the buyers of his

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 169

produce and can deal directly with the wholesale buyer
and exporter ; or else he concentrates in one concern
the different stages of fabrication of a given produce.
The pages which Schulze-Gawernitz has given to the
organisation of the cotton industry in England, and to
the difficulties which the German cotton-mill owners
had to contend with so long as they were dependent
upon Liverpool for raw cotton, are most instructive in this
direction. And what characterises the cotton trade pre-
vails in all other industries as well. If the Sheffield
cutlers who now work in their tiny workshops, in one
of the above-mentioned buildings supplied with wheel-
power, were incorporated in one big factory, the chief
advantage which would be realised in the factory would
not be an economy in the costs of production in com-
parison to the quality of the produce ; with a share-
holders' company the costs might even increase. And
yet the profits (including wages) would be much greater
than the aggregate earnings of the workers, in conse-
quence of the reduced costs of purchase of iron and coal,
and the facilities for the sale of the produce. The great
concern would thus find its advantages — not in such
factors as are imposed by the technical necessities of
the trade at the time being, but in such factors as could
be eliminated by co-operative organisation. All these
are elementary notions among practical men. It hardly
need be added that a further advantage which the fac-
tory owner has is, that he can find a sale even for produce
of the most inferior quality, provided there is a con-
siderable quantity of it to be sold. All those who are
acquainted with commerce know, indeed, what an im-
mense bulk of the world's trade consists of " shoddy,"
■patraque, " Red Indians' blankets," and the like, shipped
to distant countries. Whole cities — ^we just saw — pro-
duce nothing but " shoddy ".

Altogether, it may be taken as one of the funda-
mental facts of the economical life of Europe that the

170 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

defeat of a number of small trades, artisan work and
domestic industries came through their being incapable
of organising the sale of their produce — not from the
production itself. The same thing recurs at every page
of economical history. The incapacity of organising the
sale, without being enslaved by the merchant, was the
leading feature of the mediaeval cities, which gradually
fell under the economical and political yoke of the
Guild-Merchant, simply because they were not able to
maintain the sale of their manufactures by the com-
munity as a whole, or to organise the sale of a new
produce in the interest of the community. When the
markets for such commodities came to be Asia on the
one side and the New World on the other side, such was
fatally the case. Even nowadays, when we see the
co-operative societies beginnirig to succeed in their pro-
ductive workshops, while twenty years ago they invari-
ably failed in their capacity of producers, we may con-
clude that the cause of their previous failures was not in
their incapacity of properly and economically organising
production, but in their inability of acting as sellers and
exporters of the produce they had fabricated. Their
present successes, on the contrary, are fully accounted for
by the network of distributive societies which they have
at their command. The sale has been simplified and
production has been rendered possible by first organising
the market.

Such are a few conclusions which may be drawn from
a study of the small industries in Germany and else-
where. And it may be safely said, with regard to
Germany, that if measures are not taken for driving
the peasants from the land on the same scale as they
have been taken in this country ; if, on the contrary,
the numbers of small landholders multiply, they neces-
sarily will turn to various small trades, in addition to
agriculture, as they have done, and are doing in France.
Every step that may be taken, either for awakening

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. I/I

intellectual life in the villages, or for assuring the
peasants' or the country's rights upon the land, will
necessarily further the growth of industries in the vil-
lages*

Petty Trades in other Countries.

If it were worth extending our inquiry to other
countries, we should find a vast field for most inter-
esting observations in Switzerland. There we should
see the same vitality in a variety of petty industries,
and we could mention what has been done in the
different cantons for maintaining the smallr trades by
three different sets of measures : the extension of co-
operation ; a wide extension of technical education in
the schools and the introduction of new branches of
semi-artistic production in different parts of the country ;
and the supply of cheap motive power in the houses
by means of a hydraulic or an electric transmission of
power borrowed from the waterfalls. A separate book
of the greatest interest and value could be written on this
subject, especially on the impulse given to a number of
petty trades, old and new, by means of a cheap supply
of motive power.

Belgium would offer an equal interest. Belgium
is certainly a country of centralised industry, and a
country in which the productivity of the worker stands
at a high level, the average annual productivity of each
industrial workman — men, women, and children- — attain-
ing the high figure of ;^226 (5660 francs) per head.
Coal mines, in which more than a thousand workers are
employed, are numerous, and there is a fair number of
textile factories in each of which from 300 to 700 workers
are occupied. And yet, if we exclude from the indus-
trial workers' population of Belgium, which numbered

* See Appendix Q.

1/2 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

384,065 persons in 1880 (423,755 with the clerks,
travellers, supervisors and so on), nearly 100,000 work-
men (94,757) who are employed in the coal mines, we
find that out of the remaining 290,308 workers very
nearly one-half, i.e., 132,840 persons, work in workshops
in which less than fifty persons are employed, while
84,500 persons out of these last are employed in 25,959
workshops, which thus- have an average of three workers
per workshop.* We may thus say that — taking the
mines out of account — more than one-fourth part of the
Belgian industrial workers (three-tenths) are employed
in small workshops which have, on the average, less than
three workers each, besides the master.t

What is still more remarkable is, that the number
of small workshops, in which from one to three aids
only are employed by the master, attains the consider-
able figure of 2293 in the textile industries, notwith-
standing the high concentration of these industries, the
fact being, as was already mentioned on a preceding
page, that factories which used to employ 500 or 600
cloth weavers are silent, while cloth is being woven by
the clothiers in their houses. As to the machinery and
hardware trades, the small workshops in which the master
works with from two to four assistants or journeymen
are very numerous, to say nothing of the gun trade which
is a petty trade par excellence (265 workshops with
less than three workers), and the furniture trade which
has lately taken a great development. A highly concen-
trated industry, and a high productivity, as well as a
considerable export trade [fig per head of population),
which all testify to a high industrial development of

* Out of this number, 16,220 workshops occupy 58,545 workers.
Moreover, there are 5975 artisans.

t When shall we have for the United Kingdom a census as complete
as we have it for France and Belgium ? that is, a census in which the
employed and the employers will be counted separately, instead of throw-
ing into one heap the owner of the factory, the managers, the engineers
and the workers.

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 1 73

the country, thus go hand in hand with a high develop-
ment of the domestic and petty trades.

It hardly need be said that in Austria, Hungary,
Italy, and even the United States, the petty trades
occupy a prominent position, and play in the sum total
of industrial activity an even much greater part than
in France, Belgium, or Germany. But it is especially
in. Russia that we can fully appreciate the importance
of the rural industries and the terrible sufferings which
would be quite uselessly inflicted on the population if
the policy of the State were to follow the advice of some
arch-reactionary economists of the Moscow Gazette
school, and to throw the tremendous weight of the State
in favour of a pauperisation of the peasants and an
artificial annihilation of the rural trades, in order to
create a centralised great industry.

The most exhaustive inquiries into the present state,
the growth, the technical development of the rural in-
dustries, and the difficulties they have to contend with,
have been made in Russia. A house-to-house inquiry
which embraces nearly 1,000,000 peasants' houses has
been made in various provinces of Russia, and its re-
sults already represent 450 volumes, printed by different
county councils (Zemstvos). Besides, in the fifteen
volumes published by the Petty Trades Committee, and
still more in the publications of the Moscow Statistical
Committee, and of many provincial assemblies, we find
, exhaustive lists giving the name of each worker, the
extent and the state of his fields, his live stock, the value
of his agricultural and industrial production, his earnings
from both sources, and his yearly budget ; while hun-
dreds of separate trades have been described in separate
monographs from the technical, economical, and sanitary
points of view.

The results obtained from these inquiries are really
imposing, as it appears that out of the 80,000,000
population of European Russia ng less than 7,500,000

174 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

persons are engaged in the domestic trades, and that
their production reaches, at the lowest estimate, more
than ;£■ 1 50,000,000, and most probably ;£^200,ooo,ooo
(2,000,000,000 roubles) every year.* It thus exceeds
the total production of the great industry. As to the
relative importance of the two for the working classes
suffice it to say that even in the government of Moscow,
which is the chief manufacturing region of Russia (its
factories yield upwards of one-fifth in value of the
aggregate industrial production of European Russia),
the aggregate incomes derived by the population from
the domestic industries are three times larger than the
aggregate wages earned in the factories.

The most striking feature of the Russian domestic
trades is that the sudden start which was made of late
by the factories in Russia did not prejudice the domestic
industries. On the contrary, it gave a new impulse to
their extension ; they grow and develop precisely in
those regions where the factories are growing up fastest.
Another most suggestive feature is the following:
although the unfertile provinces of Central Russia have
been from time immemorial the seat of all kinds of petty
trades, several domestic industries of modern origin are
developing in those provinces which are best favoured
by soil and climate. Thus, the Stavropol government
of North Caucasus, where the peasantry have plenty of
fertile soil, has suddenly become the seat of a widely
developed silk-weaving industry in the peasants' houses,
and now it supplies Russia with cheap silks which have
completely expelled from the market the plain silks
formerly imported from France. In Orenburg and on

* It appears from the house-to-house inquiry, which embodies 855,000
workers, that the yearly value of the produce which they use to manu-
facture reaches ^£'21,087,000 (the rouble at 24d.), that is, an average of
£2$ per worker. An average of £20 for the 7,500,000 persons engaged
in domestic industries would already give ;f 150,000,000 for their aggregate
production ; but the most authoritative investigators consider that figure
as belpw the reality,

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 175

the Black Sea, the petty trades' fabrication of agricultural
machinery, which has grown up lately, is another instance
in point.

The capacities of the Russian domestic industrial
workers for co-operative organisation would be worthy
of more than a passing mention. As to the cheapness
of the produce manufactured in the villages, which is
really astonishing, it cannot be explained in full by the
exceedingly long hours of labour and the starvation
earnings, because overwork (twelve to sixteen hours of
labour) and very low wages are characteristic of the
Russian factories as well. It depends also upon the
circumstance that the peasant who grows his own food,
but suffers from a constant want of money, sells the
produce of his industrial labour at any price. Therefore,
all manufactured goods used by the Russian peasantry,
save the printed cottons, are the production of the rural
manufactures. But many articles of luxury, too, are
made in the villages, especially around Moscow, by
peasants who continue to cultivate their allotments.
The silk hats which are sold in the best Moscow shops,
and bear the stamp of Nouveautes Parisiennes, are made
by the Moscow peasants ; so also the " Vienna " furniture
of the best " Vienna " shops, even if it goes to supply the
palaces. And what is most to be wondered at is not
the skill of the peasants — agricultural work is no obstacle
to acquiring industrial skill — but the rapidity with which
the fabrication of fine goods has spread m such villages
as formerly manufactured only goods of the roughest
description.*

As to the relations between agriculture and industry,
one cannot peruse the documents accumulated by the
Russian statisticians without coming to the conclusion
that, far from damaging agriculture, the domestic trades,
on the contrary, are the best means for improving it,

* Some of the produces of the Russian rural industries have lately been
introduced in this country, and find 3 good sale,

176 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

and the more so, as for several months every y^r the
Russian peasant has nothing to do in the fields. YJThere
are regions where agriculture has been totally abandoned
for the industries ; but these are regions where it was
rendered impossible by the very small allotments granted
to the liberated serfs, and especially the bad quality of,
and the want of meadows in them, as by the general
impoverishment of the peasants, following a very high
taxation and very high redemption taxes."? But wherever
the allotments are reasonable and the 'peasants are less
overtaxed, they continue to cultivate the land and their
fields are kept in better order, as also the average
numbers of live stock are higher where agriculture is
carried on in association with the domestic trades.
Even those peasants whose allotments are small find the
means of renting more land if they earn some money
.from their industrial work. As to the relative welfare,
' I need hardly add that it always stands on, the side of
those villages which combine both kinds of work. Vors-
ma and Pavlovo— two cutlery villages, one of which is
purely industrial, while the inhabitants of the other
continue to till the soil — could be quoted as a striking
instance for such a comparison.*

Much more ought to be said with regard to the rural
industries of Russia, especially to show how easily the
peasants associate for buying new machinery, or for
avoiding the middleman in their purchases of raw pro-
duce — as soon as misery is no obstacle to the association.
Belgium, and especially Switzerland, could also be quoted
for similar illustrations, but the above will be enough to
give a general idea of the importance, the vital powers,
and the perfectibility of the rural industries.

* Prugavin, in the Vyestnik Promyshlennosti, June, 1884.

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. ( 177]

Conclusions.

The facts which we have briefly reviewed show, to
some extent, the benefits which could be derived from a
combination of agriculture with industry, if the latter
could come to the village, not in its present shape of
a capitaHst factory, but in the shape, of a socially or-
ganised industrial production, with the full aid of
machinery and technical knowledge. In fact, the most
prominent feature of the petty trades is that a relative
well-being is found only where they are combined with
agriculture : where the workers have remained in pos-
session of the soil and continue to cultivate it. Even
amidst the weavers of France or Moscow, who have to
reckon with the competition of the factory, relative
well-being prevails so long as they are not compelled
to part with the soil. On the contrary, as soon as high
taxation or the impoverishment during a crisis has com-
pelled the domestic worker to abandon his last plot of
land to the usurer, misery creeps into his house. The
sweater becomes all-powerful, frightful overwork is re-
sorted to, and the whole trade often falls into decay. \

Such facts, as well as the pronounced tendency of;
the factories towards migrating to the villages, are very
suggestive. Of course, it would be a great mistake to
imagine that industry ought to return to its hand-work
stage in order to be combined with agriculture. When-
ever a saving of human labour can be obtained by means
of a machine, the machine is welcome Snd will be re-
sorted to, and there is hardly one single branch of industry
into which machinery work could not be introduced with
great advantage, at least at some of the stages of the
fabrication. In the present chaotic state of industry,
nails and cheap pen-knives can be made by hand, and
plain cottons be woven in the hand-loom ; but such an
anomaly will not last. The machine will supersede
hand-work in the manufacture of plain goods, while hand-

12

178 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

work probably will extend its domain in the artistic
finishing of many things which are now made entirely
in the factory, as well as in thousands of young and
new trades.

But the question arises, Why should not the cottons,
the woollen cloth, and the silks, now woven by hand
in the villages, be woven by machinery in the same
villages, without ceasing to remain connected with work
in the fields .? Why should not hundreds of domestic
industries, now carried on entirely by hand, resort to
labour-saving machines, as they already do in the knit-
ting trade and many others ? There is no reason why
the small motor should not be of much more general
use than it is now, wherever there is no need to have a
factory ; and there is no reason why the village should
not have its small factory wherever factory work is pre-
ferable, as we already see it occasionally in certain
villages in France. More than that. There is no
reason why the factory, with its motive force and ma-
chinery, should not belong to the community, as is already
the case for motive power in the above-mentioned work-
shops and small factories in the French portion of the
Jura hills. It is evident that now, under the capitalist
system, the factory is the curse of the village, as it comes
to overwork children and to make paupers out of its
male inhabitants ; and it is quite natural that it should
be opposed by all means by the workers, if they have
succeeded in maintaining their olden trades' organisa-
tions (as at Sheffield, or Solingen), or if they have not
yet been reduced to sheer misery (as in the Jura). But
under a more rational social organisation the factory
would find no such obstacles : it would be a boon to the
village. And there is already unmistakable evidence to
show that a move in this direction is being made in a
few village communities.

The moral and physical advantages which man would
derive from dividing his work between the field and the

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 1 79

workshop are self-evident. But the difficulty is, we are
told, in the necessary centralisation of the modern in-
dustries. In industry, as well as in politics, centralisation
has so many admirers! But in both spheres the ideal
of the centralisers badly needs revision. In fact, if we
analyse the modern industries, we soon discover that
for some of them the co-operation of hundreds, or even
thousands, of workers gathered at the same spot is really
necessary. The great iron works and mining enter-
prises decidedly belong to that category ; oceanic
steamers cannot be built in village factories. But very
many of our big factories are nothing else but agglomera-
tions under a common management, of several distinct
industries ; while others are mere agglomerations of
hundreds of copies of the very same machine ; such are
most of our gigantic spinning and weaving establish-
ments. The manufacture being a strictly private enter-
prise, its owners find it advantageous to have all the
branches of a given industry under their own manage-
ment ; they thus cumulate the profits of the successive
transformations of the raw material. And when several
thousand power-looms are combined in one factory, the
owner finds his advantage in being able to hold the
command of the market But from a technical point
of view the advantages of such an accumulation are
trifling and often doubtful. Even so centralised an
industry as that of the cottons does not suffer at all from
the division of production of one given sort of goods
at its different stages between several separate factories :
we see it at Manchester and its neighbouring towns.
As to the petty trades, no inconvenience is experienced
from a still greater subdivision between the workshops
in the watch trade and very many others.

We often hear that one horse-power costs so much
in a small engine, and so much less in an engine ten
times more powerful; that the pound of cotton yarn
costs much less-when the factory doubles the number of

l8o FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

its spindles. But, in the opinion of the best engineering
authorities, such as Prof. W. Unwin, the hydrauHc, and
especially the electric, distribution of power from a cen-
tral station sets aside the first part of the argument.
As to its second part, calculations of this sort are only
good for those industries which prepare the half-manu-
factured produce for further transformations. As to
those countless descriptions of goods which derive their
value chiefly from the intervention of skilled labour,
they can be best fabricated in smaller factories which
employ a few hundreds, or even a few scores of opera-
tives. Even under the present conditions the leviathan
factories offer great inconveniences, as they cannot
rapidly reform their machinery according to the con-
stantly varying demands of the consumers. How many
failures of great concerns, too well known in this
country to need be named, were due to this cause ! As
for the new branches of industry which I have mentioned
at the beginning of the previous chapter, they always
must make a start on a small scale ; and they can pros-
per in small towns as well as in big cities, if the smaller
agglomerations are provided with institutions stimulating
artistic taste and the genius of invention. The pro-
gress achieved of late in toy making, as also the high
perfection attained in the fabrication of mathematical
and optical instruments, of furniture, of small luxury
articles, of pottery and so on, are instances in point.
Art and science are no longer the monopoly of the great
cities, and further progress will be in scattering them over
the country.

The geographical distribution of industries in a given
country evidently depends to a great extent upon a
complexus of natural conditions ; it is obvious that there
are spots which are best suited for the development of
certain industries. The banks of the Clyde and the
Tyne are certainly most appropriate for shipbuilding
yards, and shipbuilding yards must be surrounded by a

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. l8l

variety of workshops and factories. The industries will
always find some advantages in being grouped, to a
limited extent, according to the natural features of sepa-
rate regions. But we must recognise that now they are
not grouped according to those features. Historical
causes — chiefly religious wars and national rivalries —
have had a good deal to do with their growth and their
present distribution, and still more considerations as to
the facilities for sale and export ; that is, considerations
which are already losing their importance with the
increased facilities for transport, and will lose it still
more when the producers produce for themselves,
and not for customers far away. Why, in a rationally
organised society, ought London to remain a great centre
for the jam and preserving trade, and manufacture
umbrellas for nearly the whole of the United Kingdom }
Why should the countless Whitechapel petty trades re-
main where they are, instead of being spread all over
the country 1 There is no reason whatever why the
mantles which are worn by English ladies should be
sewn at Berlin and in Whitechapel instead of in Devon-
shire or Derbyshire. Why should Paris refine sugar for
almost the whole of France } Why should one-half of
the boots and shoes used in the United States be manu-
factured in the 1 500 workshops of Massachusetts ?
There is absolutely no reason why these and like
anomalies should persist. The industries must scatter
themselves all over the world, and the scattering of
industries amidst all civihsed nations will be necessarily
followed by a further scattering of factories over the
territories of each nation.

Agriculture is so much in need of aid from those
who inhabit the cities, that every summer thousands
of men leave their slums in the towns and go to the
country for the season of crops. The London desti-
tutes go in thousands to Kent and Sussex as hay-
makers and hop-pickers, it being estimated that Kent

1 82 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

alone requires 80,000 additional men and women for
hop-picking ; whole villages in France and their cot-
tage industries are abandoned in the summer, and the
peasants wander to the more fertile parts of the
country ; hundreds of thousands of human beings are
transported every summer to the prairies of Manitoba
and Dacota ; and in Russia there is every year an
exodus of several millions of men who journey from
the north to the southern prairies for harvesting the
crops ; while many St. Petersburg manufacturers re-
duce their production in the summer, because the
operatives return to their native villages for the culture
of their allotments. Agriculture cannot be carried on
without additional hands in the summer ; but it still
more needs temporary aids for improving the soil,
for tenfolding its productive powers. Steam-digging,
drainage, and manuring would render the heavy clays
in the north-west of London a much richer soil than
that of the American prairies. To become fertile, those
clays want only plain, unskilled human labour, such
as is necessary for digging the soil, laying in drainage
tubes, pulverising phosphorites, and the like ; and that
labour would be gladly done by the factory workers
if it were properly organised in a free community for
the benefit of the whole society. The soil claims that
aid, and it would have it under a proper organisation,
even if it were necessary to stop many mills in the
summer for that purpose. No doubt the present factory
owners would consider it ruinous if they had to stop
their mills for several months every year, because the
capital engaged in a factory is expected to pump money
every day and every hour, if possible. But that is the |
capitalist's view of the matter, not the community's ;
view. As to the workers, who ought to be the real 1
managers of industries, they will find it healthy not
to perform the same monotonous work all the year
round, and they will abandon it for the summer, if

SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 1 83

indeed they do not find the means of keeping the fac-
tory running by relieving each other in groups.

The scattering of industries over the country — so as
to bring the factory amidst the fields, to make agri-
culture derive all those profits which it always finds
in being combined with industry (see the Eastern States
of America) and to produce a combination of industrial
with agricultural work — is surely the next step to be
made, as soon as a reorganisation of our present condi-
tions is possible. It is being made already, as we saw
on the preceding pages. That step is imposed by the
very necessity of producing for the producers them-
selves ; it is imposed by the necessity for each healthy
man and woman to spend a part of their lives in manual
work in the free air ; and it will be rendered the more
necessary when the great social movements, which have
now become unavoidable, come to disturb the present
international trade, and compel each nation to revert
to her own resources for her own maintenance. Hu-
manity as a whole, as well as each separate individual,
will be gainers by the change, and the change will take
place.

However, such a change also implies a thorough
modification of our present system of education. It
implies a society composed of men and women, each
of whom is able to work with his or her hands as
well as with his or her brain, and to do so in more
directions than one. This "integration of capacities"
I am now going to analyse.

CHAPTER VIII.

BRAIN WORK AND MANUAL WORK.

Divorce between science and handicraft — Technical education — Complete
education — The Moscow system : applied at Chicago, Boston, Aber-
deen — Concrete teaching — Present waste of time — Science and
technics — Advantages which science can derive from a combination
of brain work with manual work.

In olden times men of science, and especially those
who have done most to forward the growth of natural
philosophy, did not despise manual work and handi-
craft. Galileo made his telescopes with his own hands.
Newton learned in his boyhood the art of managing
tools ; he exercised his young mind in contriving most
ingenious machines, and when he began his researches
in optics he was able himself to grind the lenses for
his instruments, and himself to make the well-known
telescope, which, for its time, was a fine piece of work-
manship. Liebnitz was fond of inventing machines :
windmills and carriages to be moved without horses
preoccupied his mind as much as mathematical and
philosophical speculations. Linnasus became a botanist
while helping his father — a practical gardener — in his
daily work. In short, with our great geniuses handi-
craft was no obstacle to abstract researches— it rather
favoured them. On the other hand, if the workers of
old found but few opportunities for mastering science,
many of them had, at least, their intelligences stimu-
lated by the very variety of work which was performed
in the then unspecialised workshops ; and some of them

(184)

BRAIN WORK AND MANUAL WORK. 1 85

had the benefit of familiar intercourse with men of
science. Watt and Rennie were friends with Professor
Robinson ; Brindley, the road-maker, despite his four-
teen-pence-a-day wages, enjoyed intercourse with
educated men, and thus developed his remarkable
engineering faculties ; the son of a well-to-do family
could " idle " at a wheelwright's shop, so as to become
later on a Smeaton or a Stephenson.

We have changed all that. Under the pretext of
division of labour, we have sharply separated the brain
worker from the manual worker. The masses of the
workmen do not receive more scientific education than
their grandfathers did ; but they have been deprived
of the education of even the small workshop, while their
boys and girls are driven into a mine or a factory from
the age of thirteen, and there they soon forget the little
they may have learned at school. As to the men of
science, they despise manual labour. How few of them
would be able to make a telescope, or even a plainer
instrument ? Most of them are not capable of even
designing a scientific instrument, and when they have
given a vague suggestion to the instrument-maker they
leave it with him to invent the apparatus they need.
Nay, they have raised the contempt of manual labour
to the height of a theory. " The man of science," they
say, " must discover the laws of nature, the civil engineer
must apply them, and the worker must execute in
steel or wood, in iron or stone, the patterns devised by
the engineer. He must work with machines in-
vented for him, not by him. No matter if he does not
understand them and cannot improve them : the scien-
tific man and the scientific engineer will take care of
the progress of science and industry."

It may be objected that nevertheless there is a class
of men who belong to none of the above three
divisions. When young they have been manual
workers, and some of them continue to be ; but, owing

1 86 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

to some happy circumstances, they have succeeded in
acquiring some scientific knowledge, and thus they have
combined science with handicraft. Surely there are
such men ; happily enough there is a nucleus of men
who have escaped the so-much-advocated specialisa-
tion of labour, and it is precisely to them that industry
owes its chief recent inventions. But in old Europe
at least, they are the exceptions ; they are the irregulars
■ — ^the Cossacks who have broken the ranks and pierced
the screens so carefully erected between the classes.
And they are so few, in comparison with the ever-
growing requirements of industry — and of science as
well, as I am about to prove — that all over the world we
hear complaints about the scarcity of precisely such
men.

What is the meaning, in fact, of the outcry for
technical education which has been raised at one and
the same time in England, in France, in Germany,
in the States, and in Russia, if it does not express a
general dissatisfaction with the present division into
scientists, scientific engineers, and workers ? Listen
to those who know industry, and you will see that
the substance of their complaints is this : " The worker
whose task has been specialised by the permanent
division of labour has lost the intellectual interest in
his labour, and it is especially so in the great industries :
he has lost his inventive powers. Formerly, he in-
vented very much. Manual workers — not men of sci-
ence nor trained engineers— have invented, or brought
to perfection, the prime motors and all that mass of
machinery which has revolutionised industry for the
last hundred years. But since the great factory has
been enthroned, the worker, depressed by the monotony
of his work, invents no more. What can a weaver
invent who merely supervises four looms, without know-
ing anything either about their complicated movements
or how the machines grew to be what they are ? What

BRAIN WORK AND MANUAL WORK. 187

can a man invent who is condemned for life to bind
together the ends of two threads with the greatest
celerity, and knows nothing beyond making a knot ?

" At the outset of modern industry, three genera-
tions of workers have invented ; now they cease to do
so. As to the inventions of the engineers, specially
trained for devising machines, they are either devoid
of genius or not practical enough. Those ' nearly to
nothings,' of which Sir Frederick Bramwell spoke once
at Bath, are missing in their inventions — those nothings
which can be learned in the workshop only, and which
permitted a Murdoch and the Soho workers to make
a practical engine of Watt's schemes. None but he
who knows the machine — not in its drawings and
models only, but in its breathing and throbbings — ^who
unconsciously thinks of it while standing by it, can really
improve it. Smeaton and Newcomen surely were ex-
cellent engineers ; but in their engines a boy had to
open the steam valve at each stroke of the piston ; and
it was one of those boys who once managed to connect
the valve with the remainder of the machine, so as' to
make it open automatically, while he ran away to play
with other boys. But in the modern machinery there
is no room left for naive improvements of that kind.
Scientific education on a wide scale has become neces-
sary for further inventions, and that education is refused
to the workers. So that there is no issue out of the
difficulty unless scientific education and handicraft are
combined together — unless integration of knowledge
takes the place of the present divisions." Such is the
real substance of the present movement in favour of
technical education. But, instead of bringing to public
consciousness the, perhaps, unconscious motives of the
present discontent, instead of widening the views of the
discontented and discussing the problem to its full ex-
tent, the mouth-pieces of the movement do not mostly
rise above the shopkeeper's view of the question. Some

1 88 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

of them indulge in jingo talk about crushing all foreign
industries out of competition, while the others see in
technical education nothing but a means of somewhat
improving the flesh-machine of the factory and of trans-
ferring a few workers into the upper class of trained
engineers.

Such an ideal may satisfy them, but it cannot satisfy
those who keep in view the combined interests of sci-
ence and industry, and consider both as a means for
raising humanity to a higher level. We maintain that
in the interests of both science and industry, as well
as of society as a whole, every human being, without
distinction of birth, ought to receive such an education
as would enable him, or her, to combine a thorough
knowledge of science with a thorough knowledge of
handicraft. We fully recognise the necessity of
specialisation of knowledge, but we maintain that sp>ecial-
isation must follow general education, and that general
education must be given in science and handicraft alike.
To the division of society into brain-workers and manual
workers we oppose the combination of both kinds of
activities ; and instead of " technical education," which
means the maintenance of the present division between
brain work and manual work, we advocate the education
integrale, or complete education, which means the dis-
appearance of that pernicious distinction. Plainly
stated, the aims of the school under this system ought
to be the following : To give such an education that, on
leaving school at the age of eighteen or twenty, each
boy and each girl should be endowed with a thorough
knowledge of science — such a knowledge as might enable
them to be useful workers in science — and, at the same
time, to give them a general knowledge of what con-
stitutes the bases of technical training, and such a skill
in some special trade as would enable each of them to
take his or her place in the grand world of the manual
production of wealth. I know that many will find that

BRAIN WORK AND MANUAL WORK. 1 89

aim too large, or even impossible to attain, but I hope
that if they have the patience to read the following pages,
they will see that we require nothing beyond what can
be easily attained. In fact, it has been attained, and
what has been done on a small scale could be done on a
wider scale, were it not for the economical and social
causes which prevent any serious reform from being-
accomplished in our miserably organised society.

The experiment has been made at the Moscow Tech-
nical School for twenty consecutive years with many
hundreds of boys ; and, according to the testimonies of
the most competent judges at the exhibitions of Brussels,
Philadelphia, Vienna, and Paris, the experiment has been a
success. The Moscow school admits boys not older than
fifteen, and it requires from boys of that age nothing
but a substantial knowledge of geometry and algebra,
together with the usual knowledge of their mother
tongue ; younger pupils are received in the preparatory
' classes. The school is divided into two sections — the
mechanical and the chemical ; but as I personally know
better the former, and as it is also the more important
with reference to the question before us, so I shall limit
my remarks to the education given in the mechanical
section. After a five or six years' stay at the school, the
students leave it with a thorough knowledge of higher
mathematics, physics, mechanics, and connected sciences
— so thorough, indeed, that it is not second to that ac-
quired in the best mathematical faculties of the most
eminent European universities. When myself a student
of the mathematical faculty of the St. Petersburg Uni-
versity, I had the opportunity of comparing the know-
ledge of the students at the Moscow Technical School
with our own. I saw the courses of higher geometry
some of them had compiled for the use of their com-
rades ; I admired the facility with which they applied the
integral calculus to dynamical problems, and I came to
the conclusion that while we. University students, had

igO FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS

more knowledge of a general character (for instance,
in mathematical astronomy), they, the students of the
Technical School, were much more advanced in higher
geometry, and especially in the applications of higher
mathematics to the most intricate problems of dyna-
mics, the theories of heat and elasticity. But while we,
the students of the University, hardly knew the use of
our hands, the students of the Technical School fabri-
cated with their own hands, and without the help of
professional workmen, fine steam-engines, from the
heavy boiler to the last finely turned screw, agricultural
machinery, and scientific apparatus — all for the trade
— and they received the highest awards for the work
of their hands at the international exhibitions. They
were scientifically educated skilled workers — ^workers
with university education — highly appreciated even by
the Russian manufacturers who so much distrust
science.

Now, the methods by which these wonderful results
were achieved were these : In science, learning from
memory was not in honour, while independent research
was favoured by all means. Science was taught hand
in hand with its applications, and what was learned in
the schoolroom was applied in the workshop. Great
attention was paid to the highest abstractions of
geometry as a means for developing imagination and
research. As to the teaching of handicraft, the methods
were quite different from those which proved a failure
at the Cornell University, and differed, in fact, from
those used in most technical schools. The student was
not sent to a workshop to learn some special handicraft
and to earn his existence as soon as possible, but the
teaching of technical skill was prosecuted — according to
a scheme elaborated by the founder of the school, M.
Dellavos, and now applied also at Chicago and Boston
— in the same systematical way as laboratory work is
taught in the universities. It is evident that drawing

BRAIN WORK AND MANUAL WORK. I91

was considered as the first step in technical education.
Then the student was brought, first, to the carpenter's
workshop, or rather laboratory, and there he was
thoroughly taught to execute all kinds of carpentry
and joinery. No efforts were spared in order to bring
the pupil to a certain perfection in that branch — the real
basis of all trades. Later on, he was transferred to the
turner's workshop, where he was taught to make in
wood the patterns of those things which he would have
to make in metal in the following workshops. The
foundry followed, and there he was taught to cast those
parts of machines which he had prepared in wood ; and
it was only after he had gone through the first three
stages that he was admitted to the smith's and engineer-
ing workshops. Such was the system which English
readers will find described in full in a work by Mr. Ch.
H. Ham.* As for the perfection of the mechanical
work of the students, I cannot do better than refer to the
reports of the juries at the above-named exhibitions.

In America the same system has been introduced,
in its technical part, first, in the Chicago Manual Train-
ing School, and later on in the Boston Technical School
— the best, I am told, of the sort; and in this country,
or rather in Scotland, I found the system applied with
full success, for some years, under the direction of Dr.
Ogilvie at Gordon's College in Aberdeen. It is the
Moscow or Chicago system on a limited scale. While
receiving substantial scientific education, the pupils are
also trained in the workshops^but not for one special
trade, as it unhappily too often is the case. They pass
through the carpenter's workshop, the casting in metals,
and the engineering workshop ; and in each of these

* Manual Training : the Solution of Social and Industrial Problems.
By Ch. H. Ham. London : Blackie & Son, 1886. I can add that hke
results have been achieved again at the Krasnoufimsk Realschule, in the '
province of Orenburg, especially with regard to agriculture and agri-
cultural machinery. The achievements of the school, however, are so
interesting that they deserve more than a short mention.

192 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

they learn the foundations of each of the three trades
sufficiently well for supplying the school itself with
a number of useful things. Besides, as far as I could
ascertain from what I saw in the geographical and
physical classes, as also in the chemical laboratory, the
system of " through the hand to the brain," and vice
versa, is in full swing, and it is attended with the best
success. The boys work with the physical instruments,
and they study geography in the field, instruments in
hands, as well as in the class-room. Some of their
surveys filled my heart, as an old geographer, with joy.
It is evident that the Gordon's College industrial de-
partment is not a mere copy of any foreign school ; on
the contrary, I cannot help thinking that if Aberdeen
has made that excellent move towards combining science
with handicraft, the move was a natural outcome of what
has been practised long since, on a smaller scale, in the
Aberdeen daily schools.

The Moscow Technical School surely is not an ideal
school.* It totally neglects the humanitarian education
of the young men. But we must recognise that the
Moscow experiment — not to speak of hundreds of other
partial experiments — has perfectly well proved the pos-
sibility of combining a scientific education of a very high
standard with the education which is necessary for be-
coming an excellent skilled labourer. It has proved,
moreover, that the best means for producing really good
skilled labourers is to seize the bull by the horns, and
to grasp the educational problem in its great features,
instead of trying to give some special skill in some
handicraft, together with a few scraps of knowledge in
a certain branch of some science. And it has shown
also what can be obtained, without over-pressure, if a

* What this school is now, I don't know. In the last years of
Alexander II. 's reign it was wrecked, like so many other good institu-
tions of the early part of his reign. But the system was not lost. It was
carried over to America.

BRAIN WORK AND MANUAL WORK. 1 93

rational economy of the scholar's time is always kept
in view, and theory goes hand in hand with practice.
Viewed in this light, the Moscow results do not seem
extraordinary at all, and still better results may be
expected if the same principles are applied from the
earliest years of education. Waste of time is the leading
feature of our present education. Not only are we
taught a mass of rubbish, but what is not rubbish is
taught so as to make us waste over it as much time as
possible. Our present methods of teaching originate
from a time when the accomplishments required from
an educated person were extremely limited ; and they
have been maintained, notwithstanding the immense
increase of knowledge which must be conveyed to the
scholar's mind since science has so much widened its
former limits. Hence the over-pressure in schools, and
hence, also, the urgent necessity of totally revising
both the subjects and the methods of teaching, accor-
ding to the new wants and to the examples already
given here and there, by separate schools and separate
teachers.

It is evident that the years of childhood ought not
to be spent so uselessly as they are now. German
teachers have shown how the very plays of children
can be made instrumental in conveying to the childish
mind some concrete knowledge in both geometry and
mathematics. The children who have made the squares
of the theorem of Pythagoras out of pieces of coloured
cardboard, will not look at the theorem, when it comes
in geometry, as on a mere instrument of torture devised
by the teachers ; and the less so if they apply it as the
carpenters do. Complicated problems of arithmetic,
which so much harassed us in our boyhood, are easily
solved by children seven and eight years old if they are
put in the shape of interesting puzzles. And if the
Kindergarten — German teachers often make of it a
kind of barrack in which each movement of the child

13

194 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

is regulated beforehand — has often become a small
prison for the little ones; the idea which presided at its
foundation is nevertheless true. In fact, it is almost im-
possible to imagine, without having tried it, how many
sound notions of nature, habits of classification, and
taste for natural sciences can be conveyed to the
children's minds ; and, if a series of concentric
courses adapted to the various phases of develop-
ment of the human being were generally accepted
in education, the first series in all sciences, save soci-
ology, could be taught before the age of ten or twelve,
so as to give a general idea of the universe, the earth
and its inhabitants, the chief physical, chemical, zoologi-
cal, and botanical phenomena, leaving the discovery of
the laws of those phenomena to the next series of deeper
and more specialised studies. On the other side, we all
know how children like to make toys themselves, how
they gladly imitate the work of full-grown people if
they see them at work in the workshop or the building-
yard. But the parents either stupidly paralyse that
passion, or do not know how to utilise it. Most of them
despise manual work and prefer sending their children
to the study of Roman history, or of Franklin's teach-
ings about saving money, to seeing them at a work
which is good for the " lower classes only ". They
thus do their best to render subsequent learning the more
difficult.

And then come the school years, and time is wasted
again to an incredible extent. Take, for instance,
mathematics, which every one ought to know, because
it is the basis of all subsequent education, and which so
few really learn in our schools. In geometry, time is
foolishly wasted by using a method which merely con-
sists in committing geometry to memory. In most cases,
the boy reads again and again the proof of a theorem
till his memory has retained the succession of reasonings.
Therefore, nine boys out of ten, if asked to prove an

BRAIN WORK AND MANUAL WORK. I95

elementary theorem two years after having left the
school, will be unable to do it, unless mathematics is
their speciality. They will forget which auxiliary lines
to draw, and they never have been taught to discover
the proofs by themselves. No wonder that later on
they find such difficulties in applying geometry to phy-
sics, that their progress is despairingly sluggish, and
that so few master higher mathematics. There is, how-
ever, the other method which permits progress, as a
whole, at a much speedier rate, and under which he
who once has learned geometry will know it all his
life long. Under this system, each theorem is put as
a problem ; its solution is never given beforehand,
and the pupil is induced to find it by himself. Thus,
if some preliminary exercises with the rule and the
compass have been made, there is not one boy or girl,
out of twenty or more, who will not be able to find the
means of drawing an angle which is equal to a given
angle, and to prove their equality, after a few sugges-
tions from the teacher ; and if the subsequent problems
are given in a systematic succession (there are excel-
lent text-books for the purpose), and the teacher does
not press his pupils to go faster than they can go at the
beginning, they advance from one problem to the next
with an astonishing facility, the only difficulty being
to bring the pupil to solve the first problem, and thus
to acquire confidence in his own reasoning.

Moreover, each abstract geometrical truth must be
impressed on the mind in its concrete form as well. As
soon as the pupils have solved a few problems on paper,
they must solve them in the playing-ground with a few
sticks and a string, and they must apply their knowledge
in the workshop. Only then will the geometrical lines
acquire a concrete meaning in the children's minds ;
only then will they see that the teacher is playing no
tricks when he asks them to solve problems with the
rule and the compass without resorting to the protractor ;

196 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

only then will they know geometry. " Through the
eyes and the hand to the brain " — that is the true prin-
ciple of economy of time in teaching. I remember as if
it were yesterday, how geometry suddenly acquired for
me a new meaning, and how this new meaning facili-
tated all ulterior studies. It was as we were mastering
a Montgolfier balloon, and I remarked that the angles at
the summits of each of the twenty strips of paper out
of which the balloon was going to be made must cover
less than the fifth part of a right angle each. I remem-
ber, next, how the sinuses and the tangents ceased to
be mere cabalistic signs when they permitted us to cal-
culate the length of a stick in a working profile of a
fortification ; and how geometry in space became plain
when we began to make on a small scale a bastion with
embrasures and barbettes — an occupation which ob-
viously was soon prohibited on account of the state into
which we brought our clothes. " You look like navvies,"
was the reproach addressed to us by our intelligent
educators, while we were proud precisely of being
navvies, and of discovering the use of geometry.

By compelling our children to study real things from
mere graphical representations, instead of making those
things themselves, we compel them to waste the most
precious time ; we uselessly worry their minds ; we
accustom them to the worst methods of learning ; we
kill independent thought in the bud ; and very seldom
we succeed in conveying a real knowledge of what we
are teaching. Superficiality, parrot-like repetition, slav-
ishness and inertia of mind are the results of our method
of education. We do not teach our children how to
learn. The very beginnings of science are taught on
the same pernicious system. In most schools even
arithmetic is taught in the abstract way, and mere rules
are stuffed into the poor little heads. The idea of a
unit, which is arbitrary and can be changed at will in
our measurement (the match, the box of matches, the

BRAIN WORK AND MANUAL WORK. 197

dozen of boxes, or the gross ; the metre, the centimetre,
the kilometre, and so on), is not impressed on the mind,
and therefore, when the children come to the decimal
fractions they are at a loss to understand them ; whereas
in France, where the decimal system of measures and
money is a matter of daily life, even those workers who
have received the plainest elementary education are
quite familiar with decimals. To represent twenty-five
centimes or twenty-five centimetres, they write " zero
twenty-five," while most of my readers surely remember
how this same zero at the head of a row of figures
puzzled them in their boyhood. We do also what we
can to render algebra unintelligible, and our children
spend one year before they have learned what is not
algebra at all, but a mere system of abbreviations, which
can be learned by the way if it is taught together with
arithmetic.

The waste of time in physics is simply revolting.
While young people very easily iznderstand the prin-
ciples of chemistry and its formulas, as soon as they
themselves make the first experiments with a few glasses
and tubes, they mostly find the greatest difficulties in
grasping the mechanical introduction into physics,
partly because they do not know geometry, and especi-
ally because they are merely shown costly machines
instead of being induced to make themselves plain
apparatus for illustrating the phenomena they study.
Instead of learning the laws of force with plain instru-
ments which a boy of fifteen can easily make, they learn
them from mere drawings, in a purely abstract fashion.
Instead of making themselves an Atwood's machine
with a broomstick and the wheel of an old clock, or
verifying the laws of falling bodies with a key gUding on
an inclined string, they are shown a complicated appara-
tus, and in most cases the teacher himself does not know
how to explain to them the principle of the apparatus,
and indulges in irrelevant details. And so it goes on

198 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

from the beginning to the end, with but a few honour-
able exceptions.*

If waste of time is characteristic of our methods of
teaching science, it is characteristic as well of the methods
used for teaching handicraft. We know how years are
wasted when a boy serves his apprenticeship in a work-
shop ; but the same reproach can be addressed, to a
great extent, to those technical schools which endeavour
at once to teach some special handicraft, instead of
resorting to the broader and surer methods of syste-
matical teaching. Just as there are in science some
notions and methods which are preparatory to the study
of all sciences, so there are also some fundamental
notions and methods preparatory to the special study
of any handicraft. Reuleaux has shown in that delight-
ful book, the Theoretiscke Kinematik, that there is, so
to say, a philosophy of all possible machinery. Each
machine, however complicated, can be reduced to a few
elements — plates, cylinders, discs, cones, and so on — as
well as to a few tools — chisels, saws, rollers, hammers,

* Take, for instance, the description of Atwood's machine in any
course of elementary physics. You will find very great attention paid to
the wheels on which the axle of the pulley is made to lie ; hollow boxes,
plates and rings, the clock, and other accessories will be mentioned before
one word is said upon the leading idea of the machine, which is to slacken
the motion of a falling body by making a falling body of small weight
move a heavier body which is in the state of inertia, gravity acting on it
in two opposite directions. That was the inventor's idea ; and if it is
made clear the pupils see at once that to suspend two bodies of equal
weight over a pulley, and to make them move by adding n small weight
to one of them, is one of the means (and a good one) for slackening the
motion during the falling ; they see that the friction of the pulley must be
reduced to a minimum, either by using the two pairs of wheels, which so
much puzzle the text-book makers, or by any other means ; that the clock
is a luxury, and the " plates and rings " are mere accessories : in short,
that Atwood's idea can be realised with the wheel of a clock fastened, as
a pulley, to a wall, or on the top of a broomstick secured in a vertical
position. In this case the pupils will understand the idea of the machine
and of its inventor, and they will accustom themselves to separate the
leading idea from the accessories ; while in the other case they merely
look with curiosity at the tricks performed by the teacher with a compli-
cated machine, and the few who finally understand it spend a quantity of
time in the effort. In reality, all apparatus used to illustrate the funda-
mental laws of physics ought to be made by the children themselves.

BRAIN WORK AND MANUAL WORK. 199

etc. ; and, however complicated its movements, they can
be decomposed into a few modifications of motion, such
as the transformation of circular motion into a rec-
tilinear, and the like, with a number of intermediate
links. So also each handicraft can be decomposed into a
number of elements. In each trade one must know how
to make a plate with parallel surfaces, a cylinder, a disc,
a square, and a round hole; how to manage a limited
number of tools, all tools being mere modifications of
less than a dozen types ; and how to. transform one kind
of motion into another. This is the foundation of all
mechanical handicrafts ; so that the knowledge of how
to make in wood those primary elements, how to manage
the chief tools in wood-work, and how to transform
various kinds of motion, ought to be considered as
the very basis for the subsequent teaching of all pos-
sible kinds of mechanical handicraft. The pupil who has
acquired that skill already knows one good half of all
possible trades. Besides, none can be a good worker in
science unless he is in possession of good methods of
scientific research; unless he has learned to observe, to
describe with exactitude, to discover mutual relations
between facts seemingly disconnected, to make hypo-
theses and to verify them, to reason upon cause and
effect, and so on. And none can be a good manual
worker unless he has been accustomed to the good
methods of handicraft altogether. He must grow ac-
customed to conceive the subject of his thoughts in a
concrete form, to draw it, or to model, to hate badly kept
tools and bad methods of work, to give to everything a
fine touch of finish, to derive artistic enjoyment from
the contemplation of gracious forms and combinations
of colours, and dissatisfaction from what is ugly. Be it
handicraft, science, or art, the chief aim of the school
is not to make a specialist from a beginner, but to teach
him the elements of knowledge and the good methods
of work, and, above all, to give him that general in-

200 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

spiration which will induce him, later on, to put in what-
ever he does a sincere longing for truth, to like what is
beautiful both as to form and contents, to feel the neces-
sity of being a useful unit amidst other human units, and
thus to feel his heart at unison with the rest of humanity.

As for avoiding the monotony of work which would
result from the pupil always making mere cylinders and
discs, and never making full machines or other useful
things, there are thousands of means for avoiding that
want of interest, and one of them, in use at Moscow,
is worthy of notice. It is not to give work for mere
exercise, but to utilise everything which the pupil makes,
from his very first steps. Do you remember how you
were delighted, in your childhood, if your work was
utilised, be it only as a part of something useful .'' So they
do at Moscow. Each plank planed by the pupils is uti-
lised as a part of some machine in some of the other
workshops. When a pupil comes to the engineering
workshop, and he is set to make a quadrangular block of
iron with parallel and perpendicular surfaces, the block
has an interest in his eyes, because, when he has finished
it, verified its angles and surfaces, and corrected its de-
fects, the block is not thrown under the bench — it is
given to a more advanced pupil, who makes a handle to
it, paints the whole, and sends it to the shop of the school
as a paper-weight. The systematical teaching thus re-
ceives the necessary attractiveness.*

It is evident that celerity of work is a most impor-
tant factor in production. So it might be asked if,
under the above system, the necessary speed of work
could be obtained. But there are two kinds of celerity.
There is the celerity which I saw in a Nottingham lace-

• The sale of the pupils' work is not insignificant, especially when
they reach the higher classes, and make steam-engines. Therefore the
Moscow school, when I knew it, was one of the cheapest in the world.
It gave boarding and education at a very low fee. But imagine such a
school connected with a farm school, which grows food and exchanges it
at Its cost price. What will be the cost of education then '

BRAIN WORK AND MANUAL WORK. 20I

factory ; full-grown men, with shivering hands and heads,
are feverishly binding together the ends of two threads
from the remnants of cotton-yarn in the bobbins ; you
hardly can follow their movements. But the very fact
of requiring such kind of rapid work is the condemnation
of the factory system. What has remained of the
human being in those shivering bodies ? What will be
their outcome .■' Why this waste of human force, when it
could produce ten times the value of the odd rests of
yarn ? This kind of celerity is required exclusively
because of the cheapness of the factory slaves ; so let
us hope that no school will ever aim at this kind of
quickness in work. But there is also the time-saving
celerity of the well-trained worker, and this is surely
achieved best by the kind of education which we ad-
vocate. However plain his work, the educated worker
makes it better and quicker than the uneducated. Ob-
serve, for instance, how a good worker proceeds in
cutting anything — say a piece of cardboard — and com-
pare his movements with those of an improperly trained
worker. The latter seizes the cardboard, takes the tool
as it is, traces a line in a haphazard way, and begins to
cut ; half-way he is tired, and when he has finished his
work is worth nothing ; whereas, the former will examine
his tool and improve it if necessary ; he will trace the
line with exactitude, secure both cardboard and rule,
keep the tool in the right way, cut quite easily, and
give you a piece of good work. That is the true time-
saving celerity, the most appropriate for economising
human labour ; and the best means for attaining it is
an education of the most superior kind. The great
masters painted with an astonishing rapidity ; but their
rapid work was the result of a great development of in-
telligence and imagination, of a keen sense of beauty,
of a fine perception of colours. And that is the kind of
rapid work of which humanity is in need.

Much more ought to be said as regards the duties

202 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

of the school, but I hasten to say a few words more
as to the desirability of the kind of education briefly
sketched in the preceding pages. Certainly, I do not
cherish the illusion that a thorough reform in education,
or in any of the issues indicated in the preceding
chapters, will be made as long as the civilised nations
remain under the present narrowly egotistic system of
production and consumption. All we can expect, as long
as the present conditions last, is to have some micro-
scopical attempts at reforming here and there on a small
scale — attempts which necessarily will prove to be far
below the expected results, because of the impossibility
of reforming on a small scale when so intimate a con-
nection exists between the manifold functions of a
civilised nation. But the energy of the constructive
genius of society depends chiefly upon the depths of its
conception as to what ought to be done, and how ; and
the necessity of recasting education is one of those
necessities which are most comprehensible to all, and
are most appropriate for inspiring society with those
ideals, without which stagnation or even decay are un-
avoidable. So let us suppose that a community — a city,
or a territory which has, at least, a few millions of in-
habitants — gives the above-sketched education to all its
children, without distinction of birth (and we are rich
enough to permit us the luxury of such an education),
without asking anything in return from the children but
what they will give when they have become producers
of wealth. Suppose such an education is given, and
analyse its probable consequences.

I will not insist upon the increase of wealth which
would result from having a young army of educated
and well-trained producers ; nor shall I insist upon the
social benefits which would be derived from erasing the
present distinction between the brain workers and the
manual workers, and from thus reaching the concord-
ance of interest and harmony so much wanted in our

BRAIN WORK AND MANUAL WORK. 203

times of social struggles. I shall not dwell upon the
fulness of life which would result for each separate in-
dividual, if he were enabled to enjoy the use of both
his mental and bodily powers ; nor upon the advantages
of raising manual labour to the place of honour it ought
to occupy in society, instead of being a stamp of in-
feriority, as it is now. Nor shall I insist upon the disap-
pearance of the present misery and degradation, with all
their consequences — vice, crime, prisons, price of blood,
denunciation, and the like — ^which necessarily would
follow. In short, I will not touch now the great social
question, upon which so much has been written and so
much remains to be written yet. I merely intend to
point out in these pages the benefits which science itself
would derive from the change.

Some will say, of course, that to reduce men of science
to the role of manual workers would mean the decay
of science and genius. But those who will take into
account the following considerations probably will agree
that the result ought to be the reverse — namely, such
a revival of science and art, and such a progress in
industry, as we only can faintly foresee from what we
know about the times of the Renaissance. It has be-
come a commonplace to speak with emphasis about the
progress of science during the nineteenth century ; and
it is evident that our century, if compared with centuries
past, has much to be proud of. But, if we take into
account that most of the problems which our century
has solved already had been indicated, and their solutions
foreseen, a hundred years ago, we must admit that the
progress was not so rapid as might have been expected,
and that something hampered it. The mechanical
theory of heat was very well foreseen in the last century
by Rumford and Humphrey Davy, and even in Russia
it was advocated by Lomonosoff.* However, much more

* In an otherwise also remarkable memoir on the Arctic Regions.

204 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

than half a century elapsed before the theory reappeared
in science. Lamarck, and even Linnaeus, Geoffroy Saint-
Hilaire, Erasmus Darwin, and several others were fully
aware of the variability of species ; they were opening
the way for the construction of biology on the principles
of variation ; but here, again, half a century was wasted
before the variability of species was brought again
to the front ; and we all remember how Darwin's ideas
were carried on and forced on the attention of university
people, chiefly by persons who were not professional
scientists themselves ; and yet in Darwin's hands the
theory of evolution surely was narrowed, owing to the
overwhelming importance given to only one factor of
evolution. For many years past astronomy has been
needing a careful revision of the Kant and Laplace's
hypothesis ; but no theory is yet forthcoming which
would compel general acceptance. Geology surely has
made wonderful progress in the reconstitution of the
palasontological record, but dynamical geology progresses
at a despairingly slow rate ; while all future progress in
the great question as to the laws of distribution of living
organisms on the surface of the earth is hampered by
the want of knowledge as to the extension of glaciation
during the Quaternary epoch.* In short, in each branch

* The rate of progress in the recently so popular Glacial Period ques-
tion was strikingly slow. Already Venetz in 1821 and Esmarck in 1823
had explained the erratic phenomena by the glaciation of Europe.
Agassiz came forth with the glaciation of the Alps, the Jura mountains,
and Scotland, about 1840; and five years later, Guyot had published his
maps of the routes followed by Alpine boulders. But forty-two years
elapsed after Venetz wrote before one geologist of mark (Lyell) dared
timidly to accept his theory, even to a limited extent — the most interesting
fact being that Guyot's maps, considered as irrelevant in 1845, were
recognised as conclusive after 1863. Even now — half a century after
Agassiz's first work — Agassiz's views are not yet either refuted or
generally accepted. So also Forbes's views upon the plasticity of ice.
Let me add, by the way, that the whole polemics as to the viscosity of
ice is a striking instance of how facts, scientific terms, and experimental
methods quite familiar to building engineers, were ignored by those who
took part in the polemics. If these facts, terms and methods were taken
into account, the polemics would not have raged for years with no result.
Like instances, to show how science suffers from a want of acquaintance

BRAIN WORK AND MANUAL WORK. 205

of science a revision of the current theories as well as
new wide generalisations are wanted. And if the re-
vision requires some of that inspiration of genius which
moved Galileo and Newton, and which depends in its
appearance upon general causes of human development,
it requires also an increase in the number of scientific
workers. When facts contradictory to current theories
become numerous, the theories must be revised (we
saw it in Darwin's case), and thousands of simple in-
telligent workers in science are required to accumulate
them.

Immense regions of the earth still remain unexplored ;
the study of the geographical distribution of animals
and plants meets with stumbling-blocks at every step.
Travellers cross continents, and do not know even how
to determine the latitude nor how to manage a barometer.
Physiology, both of plants and animals, psycho-physi-
ology, and the psychological faculties of man and animals
are so many branches of knowledge requiring more data
of the simplest description. History remains a fable
convenue chiefly because it wants fresh ideas, but also
because it wants scientifically thinking workers to recon-
stitute the life of past centuries in the same way as
Thorold Rogers or Augustin Thierry have done it for
separate epochs. In short, there is not one single
science which does not suffer in its development from a
want of men and women endowed with a philosophical
conception of the universe, ready to apply their forces
of investigation in a given field, however limited, and
having leisure for devoting themselves to scientific pur-
suits. In a community such as we suppose, thousands of
workers would be ready to answer any appeal for ex-
ploration. Darwin spent almost thirty years in gather-
ing and analysing facts for the elaboration of the theory
of the origin of species. Had he lived in such a society

with facts, and methods of experimenting well known to engineers,
florists, cattle-breeders, and so on, could be produced in numbers.

2o6 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

as we suppose, he simply would have made an appeal
to volunteers for facts and partial exploration, and
thousands of explorers would have answered his appeal.
Scores of societies would have come to life to debate
and to solve each of the partial problems involved in the
theory, and in ten years the theory would have been
verified ; all those factors of evolution which only now
begin to receive due attention would have appeared in
their full light. The rate of scientific progress would
have been tenfold ; and if the individual would not have
the same claims on posterity's gratitude as he has now,
the unknown mass would have done the work with more
speed and with more prospect for ulterior advance than
the individual could do in his lifetime. Mr. Murray's
dictionary is an illustration of that kind of work — the
work of the future.

However, there is another feature of modern science
which speaks more strongly yet in favour of the change
we advocate. While industry, especially by the end of
the last century and during the first part of the present,
has been inventing on such a scale as to revolutionise
the very face of the earth, science has been losing its
inventive powers. Men of science invent no more, or
very little. Is it not striking, indeed, that the steam-
engine, even in its leading principles, the railway-engine,
the steamboat, the telephone, the phonograph, the
weaving-machine, the lace-machine, the lighthouse, the
macadamised road, photography in black and in colours,
and thousands of less important things, have not been
invented by professional men of science, although none
of them would have refused to associate his name with
any of the above-named inventions .' Men who hardly
had received any education at school, who had merely
picked up the crumbs of knowledge from the tables of
the rich, and who made their experiments with the most
primitive means — the attorney's clerk Smeaton, the in-
strument-maker Watt, the brakesman Stephenson, the

BRAIN WORK AND MANUAL WORK. 207

jeweller's apprentice Fulton, the millwright Rennie, the
mason Telford, and hundreds of others whose very
names remain unknown, were, as Mr. Smiles justly says,
" the real makers of modern civilisation " ; while the
professional men of science, provided with all means for
acquiring knowledge and experimenting, have invented
little in the formidable array of implements, machines,
and prime-motors, which has shown to humanity how to
utilise and to manage the forces of nature.* The fact is
striking, but its explanation is very simple : those men
— the Watts and the Stephensons — knew something
which the savants do not know — they knew the use of
their hands ; their surroundings stimulated their in-
ventive powers ; they knew machines, their leading
principles, and their work; they had breathed the
atmosphere of the Workshop and the building-yard.

We know how men of science will meet the reproach.
They will say : " We discover the laws of nature, let
others apply them ; it is a simple division of labour ".
But such a rejoinder would be utterly untrue. The
march of progress is quite the reverse, because in a hun-
dred cases against one the mechanical invention comes
before the discovery of the scientific law. It was not
the dynamical theory of heat which came before the
steam-engine- — it followed it. When thousands of en-
gines already were transforming heat into motion under
the eyes of hundreds of professors, and when they had
done so for half a century, or more ; when thousands of
trains, stopped by powerful brakes, were disengaging
heat and spreading sheaves of sparks on the rails at
their approach to the stations ; when all over the civilised
world heavy hammers and perforators were rendering
burning hot the masses of iron they were hammer-

* Chemistry is, to a great extent, an exception to the rule. Is it not
because the chemist is to such an extent a manual worker ? Besides,
during the last ten years we see a decided revival in scientific inventive-
ness, especially in physics — that is, in a branch in which the engineer
and the man cf science meet so much together,

208 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

ing and perforating — then, and then only, a doctor,
Mayer, ventured to bring out the mechanical theory of
heat with all its consequences : and yet the men of
science almost drove him to madness by obstinately
clinging to their mysterious caloric fluid, and they de-
scribed Joule's work on the mechanical equivalent of
heat as " unscientific "

When every engine was illustrating the impossibility
of utilising all the heat disengaged by a given amount
of burnt fuel, then came the law of Clausius. When all
over the world industry already was transforming motion
into heat, sound, light, and electricity, and each one into
each other, then only came Grove's theory of the " corre-
lation of physical forces ". It was not the theory of
electricity which gave us the telegraph. When the tele-
graph was invented, all we knew about electricity was
but a few facts more or less badly arranged in our books ;
the theory of electricity is not ready yet ; it still waits
for its Newton, notwithstanding the brilliant attempts
of late years. Even the empirical knowledge of the laws
of electrical currents was in its infancy when a few bold
men laid a cable at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean,
despite the warnings of the authorised men of science.

The name of " applied science " is quite misleading,
because, in the great majority of cases, invention, far
from being an application of science, on the contrary
creates a new branch of science. The American bridges
were no application of the theory of elasticity ; they
came before the theory, and all we can say in favour of
science is, that in this special branch, theory and prac-
tice developed in a parallel way, helping one another.
It was not the theory of the explosives which led to the
discovery of gunpowder ; gunpowder was in use for
centuries before the action of the gases in a gun was
submitted to scientific analysis. And so on. The great
processes of metallurgy ; the alloys and the properties
they acquire from the addition of very small amounts of

BRAIN WORK AND MANUAL WORK. 209

some metals or metalloids ; the recent revival of electric
lighting ; nay, even the weather forecasts which truly de-
served the reproach of being " unscientific " when they
were started by an old Jack tar, Fitzroy— all these could
be mentioned as instances in point. Of course, we have
a number of cases in which the discovery, or the inven-
tion, was a mere application of a scientific law (cases hke
the discovery of the planet Neptune), but in the immense
majority of cases the discovery, or the invention, is un-
scientific to begin with. It belongs much more to the
domain of art — art taking the precedence over science,
as Helmholtz has so well shown in one of his popular
lectures — and only after the invention has been made,
science comes to interpret it. It is obvious that each
invention avails itself of the previously accumulated
knowledge and modes of thought ; but in most cases it
makes a start in advance upon what is known ; it makes
a leap in the unknown, and thus opens a quite new
series of facts for investigation. This character of in-
vention, which is to make a start in advance of former
knowledge, instead of merely applying a law, makes it
identical, as to the processes of mind, with discovery ;
and, therefore, people who are slow in invention are also
slow in discovery.

In most cases, the inventor, however inspired by the
general state of science at a given moment, starts with a
very few settled facts at his disposal. The scientific
facts taken into account for inventing the steam-engine,
or the telegraph, or the phonograph were strikingly
elementary. So that we can affirm that what we
presently know is already sufficient for resolving any of
the great problems which stand in the order of the day
— prime-motors without the use of steam, the storage
of energy, the transmission of force, or the flying-
machine. If these problems are not yet solved, it is
merely because of the want of inventive genius, the
scarcity of educated men endowed with it, and the

14

2IO FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

present divorce between science and industry. On the
one side, we have men who are endowed with capacities
for invention, but have neither the necessary scientific
knowledge nor the means for experimenting during long
years ; and, on the other side, we have men endowed
with knowledge and facilities for experimenting, but
devoid of inventive genius, owing to their education
and to the surroundings they live in — not to speak of
the patent system, which divides and scatters the efforts
of the inventors instead of combining them.

The flight of genius which has characterised the
workers at the outset of modern industry has been miss-
ing in our professional men of science. And they will
not recover it as long as they remain strangers to
the world, amidst their dusty bookshelves; as long as
they are not workers themselves, amidst other workers,
at the blaze of the iron furnace, at the machine in the
factory, at the turning-lathe in the engineering work-
shop ; sailors amidst sailors on the sea, and fishers
in the fishing boat, wood-cutters in the forest, tillers of
the soil in the field. Our teachers in art have re-
peatedly told us of late that we must not expect a
revival of art as long as handicraft remains what it is ;
they have shown how Greek and mediaeval art were
daughters of handicraft, how one was feeding the other.
The same is true with regard to handicraft and science ;
their separation is the decay of both. As to the grand
inspirations which unhappily have been so much ne-
glected in most of the recent discussions about art — and
which are missing in science as well — these can be ex-
pected only when humanity, breaking its present bonds,
shall make a new start in the higher principles of soli-
darity, doing away with the present duality of moral
sense and philosophy.

It is evident, however, that all men and women cannot
equally enjoy the pursuit of scientific work. The variety
of inclinations is such that some will find more pleasure

BRAIN WORK AND MANUAL WORK. 211

in science, some others in art, and others again in some
of the numberless branches of the production of wealth.
But, whatever the occupations preferred by every one,
every one will be the more useful in his own branch if
he is in possession of a serious scientific knowledge.
And, whosoever he might be — scientist or artist, physi-
cist or surgeon, chemist or sociologist, historian or poet
■ — he would be the gainer if he spent a part of his life in
the workshop or the farm (the workshop and the farm),
if he were in contact with humanity in its daily work,
and had the satisfaction of knowing that he himself
discharges his duties as an unprivileged producer of
wealth. How much better the historian and the soci-
ologist would understand humanity if they knew it, not
in books only, not in a few of its representatives, but as
a whole, in its daily life, daily work, and daily affairs!
How much more medicine would trust to hygiene, and
how much less to prescriptions, if the young doctors were
the nurses of the sick and the nurses received the educa-
tion of the doctors of our time! And how much the
poet would gain in his feeling of the beauties of nature,
how much better would he know the human heart, if
he met the rising sun amidst the tillers of the soil, him-
self a tiller; if he fought against the storm with the
sailors on board ship ; if he knew the poetry of labour
and rest, sorrow and joy, struggle and conquest ! Greift
nur hinein in's voile Menschenleben ! Goethe said ; Ein
jeder lebfs — nicht vielen ist's bekannt. But how few
poets follow his advice !

The so-called division of labour has grown under a
system which condemned the masses to toil all the
day long, and all the life long, at the same wearisome
kind of labour. But if we take into account how few
are the real producers of wealth in our present society,
and how squandered is their labour, we must recognise
that Franklin was right in saying that to work five hours
a day would generally do for supplying each member

212 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

of a civilised nation with the comfort now accessible
for the few only, provided everybody took his due
share in production. But we have made some progress
since Franklin's times, and some of that progress in the
hitherto most backward branch of production has been
indicated in the preceding pages. Even in that branch
the productivity of labour can be immensely increased,
and work itself rendered easy and pleasant. More than
one half of the working day would thus remain to every
one for the pursuit of art, science, or any hobby he might
prefer ; and his work in those fields would be the more
profitable if he spent the other half of the day in pro-
ductive work — if art and science were followed from mere
inclination, not for mercantile purposes. Moreover, a
community organised on the principles of all being
workers would be rich enough to conclude that every
man and woman, after having reached a certain age —
say of forty or more — ought to be relieved from the
moral obligation of taking a direct part in the perform-
ance of the necessary manual work, so as to be able
entirely to devote himself or herself to whatever he or
she chooses in the domain of art, or science, or any
kind of work. Free pursuit in new branches of art and
knowledge, free creation, and free development thus
might be fully guaranteed. And such a community
would not know misery amidst wealth. It would not
know the duality of conscience which permeates our
life and stifles every noble effort. It wpuld freely take
its flight towards the highest regions of progress com-
patible with human nature.

CHAPTER IX.

CONCLUSION.

Readers who have had the patience to follow the facts
accumulated in this book ; especially those who have
given them a thoughtful attention, will probably feel
convinced of the immense powers over the productive
forces of Nature that man has acquired within the last
half a century. Comparing the achievements indicated
in this book with the present state of production, some
will, I hope, also ask themselves the question which will
be ere long the main object of a scientific political
economy : Whether the means now in use for satisfying
human needs, under the present system of permanent
division of functions and production for profits, are really
economical ; whether they really lead to economy in the
expenditure of human forces ; or whether they are not
mere wasteful survivals from a past that was plunged
into darkness, ignorance and oppression, and never took
into consideration the economical and social value of the
human being ?

In the domain of agriculture it may be taken as
proved that if a small part only of the time that is now
given in each nation or region to field culture was given
to well thought out and socially carried out permanent
improvements of the soil, the duration of work which
would be required afterwards to grow the yearly bread-
food for an average family of five would be less than a
fortnight every year ; and that the work required for
that purpose would not be the hard toil of the ancient

(213)

214 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

slave, but work which would be agreeable to the phy-
sical forces of every healthy man and woman in the
country.

It has been proved that by following the methods
of intensive market-gardening — partly under glass —
vegetables and fruit can be grown in such quantities
that men could be provided with a rich vegetable food
and a profusion of fruit, if they simply devoted to the
task of growing them the hours which every one will-
ingly devotes to work in the open air, after having spent
most of his day in the factory, the mine, or the study.
Provided, of course, that the production of food-stuffs
should not be the work of the isolated individual, but
the planned out and combined action of human groups.

It has also been proved — and those who care to
verify it by themselves may easily do so by calculating
the real expenditure for labour which was lately made
in the building of \^•orkmen's houses by both private
persons and municipalities * — that under a proper com-
bination of labour, twenty to twenty-four months of one
man's work would be sufficient to secure for ever, for
a family of five, an apartment or a house provided with
all the comforts which modern hygiene and taste could
require.

And it has been demonstrated by actual experiment
that, by adopting methods of education, advocated long
since and partially applied here and there, it is most
easy to convey to children of an average intelligence,
before they have reached the age of fourteen or fifteen,
a broad general comprehension of Nature, as well as of
human societies ; to familiarise their minds with sound
methods of both scientific research and technical work ;
and inspire their hearts with a deep feeling of human
solidarity and justice. And that it is extremely easy

* These figures may be computed, for instance, from the data con-
tained in " The Ninth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labour of
the United States, for the year 1893 : Building and Loan Associations "-

CONCLUSION. 215

to convey during the next four or five years a reasoned,
scientific knowledge of Nature's laws, as well as a
knowledge, at once reasoned and practical, of the tech-
nical methods of satisfying man's material needs. Far
from being inferior to the " specialised " young persons
manufactured by our universities, the complete human
being, trained to use his brain and his hands, excels
them, on the contrary, in all respects, especially as an
initiator and an inventor in both science and technics.

All this has been proved. It is an acquisition of
the times we live in — an acquisition which has been won
despite the innumerable obstacles always thrown in the
way of every initiative mind. It has been won by the
obscure tillers of the soil, from whose hands greedy
States, landlords -and middlemen snatch the fruit of
their labour even before it is ripe ; by obscure teachers
who only too often fall crushed under the weight of
Church, State, commercial competition, inertia of mind
and prejudice.

And now, in the presence of all these conquests- —
what is the reality of things.'

Nine-tenths of the whole population of grain-export-
ing countries like Russia, one-half of it in countries like
France which live on home-grown food, work upon the
land — most of them in the same way as the slaves of
antiquity did, only to obtain a meagre crop from a soil,
and with a machinery which they cannot improve, be-
cause taxation, rent and usury keep them always as near
as possible at the margin of starvation. At the begin-
ning of this century, whole populations plough with the
same plough as their mediaeval ancestors, live in the same
incertitude of the morrow, and are as carefully denied
education ; and they have, in claiming their portion of
bread, to march with their children and wives against
their own sons' bayonets, as their grandfathers did a
hundred and three hundred years ago.

In industrially developed countries, a couple of months'

2l6 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

work, or even much less than that, would be sufficient
to produce for a family a rich and varied vegetable
and animal food. But the researches of Engel (at
Berlin) and his many followers tell us that the workman's
family has to spend one full half of its yearly earnings
— that is, to give six months of labour, and often more,
to provide its food. And what food ! Is not bread and
dripping the staple food of more than one-half of Eng-
lish children ?

One month of work every year would be quite suffi-
cient to provide the worker with a healthy dwelling.
But it is from 25 to 40 per cent, of his yearly earnings
— that is, from three to five months of his working time
every year — that he has to spend in order to get a dwell-
ing, in most cases unhealthy and far too small ; and this
dwelling will never be his own, even though at the age
of forty-five or fifty he is sure to be sent away from
the factory, because the work that he used to do will by
that time be accomplished by a machine and a child.

We all know that the child ought, at least, to be
familiarised with the forces of Nature which some day
he will have to utilise ; that he ought to be prepared
to keep pace in his life with the steady progress of
science and technics ; that he ought to study science
and learn a trade. Every one will grant thus much ;
but what do we do .■' From the age of ten or even nine
we send the cliild to push a coal-cart in a mine, or to
bind, with a little monkey's agility, the two ends of
threads broken in a spinning gin. From the age of
thirteen we compel the girl- — a child yet — to work as a
" woman " at the weaving-loom, or to stew in the
poisoned, over-heated air of a cotton-dressing factory,
or, perhaps, to be poisoned in the death chambers
of a Staffordshire pottery. As to those who have the
relatively rare luck of receiving some more education,
we crush their minds by useless overtime, we con-
sciously deprive them of all possibility of themselves

CONCLUSION. 217

becoming producers ; and under an educational system
of which the motive is "profits," and the means
" speciahsation," we simply work to death the women
teachers who take their educational duties in earnest.
What floods of useless sufferings deluge every so-called
civilised land in the world!

When we look back on ages past, and see there the
same sufferings, we may say that perhaps then they
were unavoidable on account of the ignorance which pre-
vailed. But human genius, stimulated by our modern
Renaissance, has already indicated new paths to follow.

For thousands of years in succession to grow one's
food was the burden, almost the curse, of mankind.
But it need be so no more. If you make yourselves
the soil, and partly the temperature and the moisture
which each crop requires, you will see that to grow
the yearly food of a family, under rational conditions
of culture, requires so little labour that it might al-
most be done as a mere change from other pursuits.
If you return to the soil, and co-operate with your
neighbours instead of erecting high walls to conceal
yourself from their looks ; if you utilise what experi-
ment has already taught us, and call to your aid science
and technical invention which never fail to answer to
the call — look only at what they have done for warfare
— you will be astonished at the facility with which
you can bring a rich and varied food out of the soil.
You will admire the amount of sound knowledge which
your children will acquire by your side, the rapid growth
of their intelligence, and the facility with which they
will grasp the laws of Nature, animate and inanimate.

Have the factory and the workshop at the gates of
your fields and gardens, and work in them. Not those
large establishments, of course, in which huge masses
of metals have to be dealt with and which are better
placed at certain spots indicated by Nature, but the
countless variety of workshops and factories which are

2l8 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

required to satisfy the infinite diversity of tastes among
civilised men. Not those factories in which children
lose all the appearance of children in the atmosphere of
an industrial hell, but those airy and hygienic, and
consequently economical, factories in which human life
is of more account than machinery and the making of
extra profits, of which we already find a few samples
here and there ; factories and workshops into which men,
women and children will not be driven by hunger, but-
will be attracted by the desire of finding an activity
suited to their tastes, and where, aided by the motor
and the machine, they will choose the branch of activity
which best suits their inclinations.

Let those factories and workshops be erected, not
for making profits by selling shoddy or useless and
noxious things to enslaved Africans, but to satisfy the
unsatisfied needs of millions of Europeans. And again,
you will be struck to see with what facility and in how
short a time your needs of dress and of thousands of
articles of luxury can be satisfied, when production is
carried on for satisfying real needs rather than for
satisfying shareholders by high profits or for pouring
gold into the pockets of promoters and bogus directors.
Very soon you will yourselves feel interested in that
work, and you will have occasion to admire in your
children their eager desire to become acquainted with
Nature and its forces, their inquisitive inquiries as to
the powers of machinery, and their rapidly developing
inventive genius.

Such is the future — already possible, already realis-
able ; such is the present — already condemned and about
to disappear. And what prevents us from turning our
backs to this present and from marching towards that
future, or, at least, making the first steps towards it, is
not the " failure of science," but first of all our crass
cupidity — the cupidity of the man who killed the hen
that was laying golden eggs — and then our laziness

CONCLUSION. 219

of mind — that mental cowardice so carefully nurtured in
the past.

For centuries science and so-called practical wisdom
have said to man : " It is good to be rich, to be able to
satisfy, at least, your material needs ; but the only means
to be rich is to so train your mind and capacities as to
be able to compel other men — slaves, serfs or wage-
earners — to make these riches for you. You have no
choice. Either you must stand in the ranks of the
peasants and the artisans who, whatsoever economists
and moralists may promise them in the future, are now
periodically doomed to starve after each bad crop or
during their strikes, and to be shot down by their own
sons the moment they lose patience. Or you must
train your faculties so as to be a military commander
of the masses, or to be accepted as one of the wheels of
the governing machinery of the State, or to become a
manager of men in commerce or industry." For many
centuries there was no other choice, and men followed
that advice, without finding in it happiness, either for
themselves and their own children, or for those whom
they pretended to preserve from worse misfortunes.

But modern knowledge has another issue to offer
to thinking men. It tells them that in order to be rich
they need not take the bread from the mouths of others ;
but that the riiore rational outcome would be a society
in which men, with the work of their own hands and
intelligence, and by the aid of the machinery already
invented and to be invented, should themselves create
all imaginable riches. Technics and science will not be
lagging behind if production takes such a direction.
Guided by observation, analysis and experiment they will
answer all possible demands. They will reduce the
time which is necessary for producing wealth to any
desired amount, so as to leave to every one as much
leisure as he or she may ask for. They surely cannot
guarantee happiness, because happiness depends as

220 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

much, or even more, upon the individual himself as upon
his surroundings. But they guarantee, at least, the
happiness that can be found in the full and varied
exercise of the different capacities of the human being,
in work that need not be overwork, and in the conscious-
ness that one is not endeavouring to base his own
happiness upon the misery of others.

These are the horizons which the above inquiry opens
to the unprejudiced mind.

APPENDIX.

A. — French Imports.

About one-tenth part of the cereals consumed in France is
still imported ; but, as will be seen in a subsequent chapter,
the progress in agriculture has lately been so rapid that even
without Algeria France will soon have a surplus of cereals.
Wine is imported, but nearly as much is exported. So that
coffee and oil seeds remain the only food articles of durable
importance for import. For coal and coke France is still
tributary to Belgium and this country ; but it is chiefly the
inferiority of organisation of coal extraction which stands in
the way of the home supply. The other important items of
imports are : raw cotton (about ;£8,ooo,ooo of net imports),
raw wool to the same amount, and raw silk (about
;£5, 000,000), as well as hides and furs. The exports of
manufactured goods were ;£8o,ooo,ooo in r890 and about
;^7 4,000,000 in subsequent years. Exports of textiles, ex-
clusive of yarn and linen, ;£29,8oo,ooo in 1890, and
;£25, 500,000 in 1891-4. Imports of all textiles, ;^6,900,ooo
in 1890, and ;^4,8oo,ooo in 1891-4.

B. — Growth of Industry in Russia.

The growth of industry in Russia will be best seen from
the following : —

1880-1. 1893-4.

Cwts. Cwts.

Cast iron 8,810,000 25,450,000

Iron 5,770,000 9,700,000

Steel 6,030,000 g,6io,ooo

Railway rails 3,960,000 4,400,000

Coal 64,770,000 160,000,000

Naphtha 6,900,000 108,700,000

Sugar 5,030,000 11,470,000

Raw cotton, home grown . . . 293,000 1,225,000
(221)

222

FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

Cottons, spinning
„ weaving
„ printing and dyeing

i8Sg.
, ;^7 ,410,000 £18,760,000
, 9,970,000 22,230,000
. 6,110,000 7,280,000

C. — Iron Industry in Germany.

The following tables will give some idea of the growth of
mining and metallurgy in Germany.

The extraction of minerals in the German Empire, in
metric tons, which are very little smaller than the English
ton (0.984), was: —

1883. 1893.

Tons. Tons.

Coal 55,943,000 76,773,000

Lignite ...... 14,481,000 22,103,000

Iron ore ...... 8,616,000 12,404,000

Zinc ore 678,000 729,000

Mineral salts (chiefly potash) . . 1,526,000 2,379,000

1874. 1894.

Pig iron 1,906,260 5,382,170

Half finished and finished iron and

steel ...... 489,000 5,825,000

Iniports of iron and steel . . . 757i7oo 349,160

Exports of same .... 546,900 2,008,760

Total home consumption of pig iron,

iron and steel .... 2-,ii7,o8o 3i772,57o

Eijg. lb. Eng. lb.

Do. per head of population . . 115 161
Production of same per head of

population 103 232

For the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg the proportion is
still more striking : —

1868. 1893,

Tons. Tons.

Iron ore raised 722,000 3,352,000

Pig iron produced (1871) . . . 93,400 558,300
Steel, begun to be produced in 1886

o"ly 20,554 129,120

Workmen employed .... 3,508 7.087

(From the journal of the Iron and Steel Institute, vol. xlviii., 1895,
p. 6.)

APPENDIX. 223

D. — Machinery in Germany.

The growth of the productive powers in Germany is best
illustrated by the development of machinery. In the year
1879 Prussia had 29,985 standing engines (887,780 horse-
power), 5442 moving engines (47,100 horse-power), and 623
engines on ships (50,310 horse-power). Total, 35,960
engines (985,190 horse-power). Fifteen years later the re-
spective figures were: — 57,224 standing (2,172,250 horse-
power), 14,425 moving (147,130 horse-power), and 1726 on
ships (219,770 horse-power). Total, 73,375 engines
(2,539>i5° horse-power).

Same increase in Bavaria. In 1879, 2411 standing engines
(70,680 horse-power), 892 moving (5520 horse-power), and 98
on ships (2860 horse-power). Total, 3401 engines (79,060
horse-power). In 1889 there were 3819 standing engines
(124,680 horse-power), 2021 moving (13,730 horse-power),
and 38 on ships (4370 horse-power). Total, 5868 engines
(142,750 horse-power).

For the German Empire Prof. Lexis estimated the total
of all engines in 1879 at 65,170 engines, 4,510,640 horse-
power. In 1892 the aggregate horse-power was 7,206,000,
namely, 2,500,000 horse-power in standing engines, 4,200,000
in moving, and 500,000 on ships {^chm.o\\e.x's Jahrbuch, xix.,
i., p. 275).

The rapid progress in the fabrication of machinery in
Germany is still better seen from the growth of the German
exports as shown by the following table : —

iSgo. 1S95.

Machines and parts thereof . . ;f2,45o,ooo £3,215,000

Sewing-machines and parts thereof . 315,000 430,000

Locomotives and locomobiles . 1 280,000 420,000

Every one knows that part of the German sewing-machines
and a considerable amount of tools find their way even into
this country, and that German tools are plainly recommended
in English books.

224 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

E. — Cotton Industry in Germany.

Dr. G. Schulze-Gaewernitz, in his excellent work, The
Cotton Trade in England and on the Continent (English trans-
lation by Oscar S. Hall, London, 1895), calls attention to the
fact that Germany has certainly not yet attained, in her cotton
industry, the high technical level of development attained
by England; but he shows also the progress lately realised.
The cost of each yard of plain cotton, notwithstanding low
wage's and long hours, is still greater in Germany than in
England, as seen from the following tables. Taking a cer-
tain quality of plain cotton in both countries, he gives (p.
151, German edition) the following comparative figures: —

England. Germany.
Hours of labour ..... g hours 12 hours
Average weekly earnings of the opera-
tives ..... i . i6s. 3d. IIS. 8d.
Yards woven per week per operative . 706 yards 466 yards
Cost per yard of cotton , . . o.275d. 0.303d.

But he remarks also that in all sorts of printed cottons, in
which fancy, colours and invention play a predominant part,
the advantages are entirely on the side of the smaller German
factories.

In the spinning mills the advantages, on the contrary, con-
tinue to remain entirely on the side of England, the number
of operatives per 1000 spindles being in various countries as
follows (p. 91, English edition): —

Per 1000 spindles.

Bombay ........ 25 operatives.

Italy 13 „

Alsace 9i .1

Mulhouse 7I ■.

Germany, 1861 20 ,,

1882 8 to g „

England, 1837 7 „

1887 3

For the last ten years considerable improvements have
taken place. " India shows us, since 1884, extraordinary
developments," Schulze-Gaewernitz remarks, and " there is
no doubt that Germany also has reduced the number of

APPENDIX. 225

operatives per 1000 spindles since the last Inquest ". "From
a great quantity of materials lying before me, I cull," he
writes, " the following, which, however, refer solely to lead-
ing and technically distinguished spinning mills : —

Per 1000 spindles.

Switzerland 6.2 operatives.

Mulhouse 5.8

Baden and Wiirtemberg ..... 6.2

Bavaria . . . . . . . . 6.8

Saxony (new and splendid mills) . . . 7.2

Vosges, France (old spinning mills) . . 8.g

Russia ........ 16.6

The average counts of yarn for all the^e are between
twenties and thirties.

The progress realised in Augsburg between 1875 and 1891
appears as follows : —

1891.
35-9
34
42.4

//

Wages have been raised everywhere."

F. — Mining and Textiles in Austria.

To give an idea of the development of industries in
Austria-Hungary, it is sufficient to mention the growth of her
mining industries and the present state of her textile in-
dustries.

The value of the yearly extraction of coal and iron ore
appears as follows : —

1S80. 1893.

Coal (Austria) ;^i,6ii,ooo ;£'2, 796,000

Brown coal (Austria) .... 1,281,300 2,837,400

Raw iron (Austria-Hungary) . . 1,749,000 3,015,800

At the present time the exports of coal entirely balance the
imports.

As to the textile industries, Austria alone, already in 1890,
had 1970 steam-engines, of 113,280 horse-power, employed in

15

Per spindle, lb. yarn ....
Counts ... . .

1875-
. 32-6

• 34

Per spindle, lb. cotton .
Operatives, per 1000 spindles
Hours of labour, per week .

■ 39-3
9-7
• 72

226 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

the fabrication of textiles. For cotton spinning she had
153 establishments, with 2,392,360 spindles, employing 33,815
work-people, while for cotton weaving she had 194 estab-
lishments, with 47,902 power-looms.

The imports of raw cotton attained, in 1894, the respect-
able sum of £4,335,°°° (cotton yarn, ;£i,375,ooo) ; of wool,
;£3,ooo,ooo (woollen yarn, ;£i,77S>°o°) i of silk, ;£i,56o,ooo ;
while her exports of woollen goods quite balanced the im-
ports of the same.

G. — Mr. Giffen's and Mr.' Flux's Figures Concerning
THE Position of the United Kingdom in Inter-
national Trade.

A few remarks concerning these figures may be of some
avail.

When a sudden fall in the British and Irish exports took
place in the years 1882-6, and the alarmists took advantage
of the bad times to raise the never-forgotten war-cry of pro-
tection, especially insisting on the damages made to British
trade by " German competition,'' Mr. Giffen analysed the
figures of international trade in his " Finance Essays " and
in a report read in 1888 before the Board of Trade Commis-
sion. Subsequently, Mr. A. W. Flux analysed again the same
figures, extending them to a later period. He confirmed
Mr. Giffen's conclusions and endeavoured to prove that the
famous " German competition " is a fallacy.

Mr. Giffen's conclusions, quoted by Mr. A. W. Flux (" The
Commercial Supremacy of Great Britain," in Economical
Journal, 1894, iv., p. 457), were as follows: —

" On the whole, the figures are not such as to indicate any
great and overwhelming advance in German exports in com-
parison with those of the United Kingdom. There is greater
progress in certain directions, but, taken altogether, no great
disproportionate advance, and in many important markets
for the United Kingdom Germany hardly appears at all."

In this subdued form, with regard to German competition
alone — and due allowance being made for figures in which

APPENDIX. 227

no consideration is given to what sort of goods make a given
value of exports, and in what quantities — Mr. Giffen's state-
ment may be accepted. But that is all.

If we take, however, Mr. Giffen's figures as they are re-
produced in extended tables (on pp. 461-467 of the just
quoted paper), tabulated with great pains in order to show
that Germany's part in the imports to several European
countries, such as Russia, Italy, Servia, etc., has declined,
as well as the part of the United Kingdom, all we cati
conclude from these figures is, that there are other countries
besides Germany, namely, the United States and Belgium,
which compete very effectively with England, France, and
Germany for supplying what manufactured goods are still
taken by Russia, Italy, Servia, etc., from abroad.

At the same time such figures give no idea of the fact
that where manufactured metal goods were formerly supplied,
coal and raw metals are imported now, for the home manu-
facture of those same goods ; or, where dyed and printed
cottons were imported, only yarn is now required. The whole
subject is infinitely more complicated than it appears in Mr.
Giffen's calculations ; and, valuable as his figures may have
been for appeasing exaggerated fears, they contain no answer
whatever to the many economic questions involved in the
matters treated by Mr. Giffen.

H. — Cotton Manufacture in India.

The views taken in the text about the industrial develop-
ment of India have been confirmed by a mass of evidence.
One of them, coming from authorised quarters, deserves
special attention. In an article on the progress of the Indian
cotton manufacture, the Textile Recorder (isth October, 1888)
wrote : —

" No person connected with the cotton industry can be
ignorant of the rapid progress of the cotton manufacture in
India. Statistics of all kinds have recently been brought
before the public, showing the increase of production in the
country ; still it does not seem to be clearly understood that
this increasing output of cotton goods must seriously lower

228 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

the demand upon Lancashire mills, and that it is not by any
means improbable that India may at no very distant period
be no better customer than the United States is now.

" In former times, Manchester goods were to be found in
the most remote villages on the banks of the Ganges and
the Brahmaputra, and even in the far distant bazaars of
Assam, Sylhet and Cachar. But now," the Recorder wrote,
" a change is taking place. Indian cotton piece goods are
coming to the front, and displacing those of Manchester.

" Unbiassed persons having a thorough knowledge of the
resources of the country, and having watched the growth of
the cotton industry during the last ten years, do not hesitate
to say that in a limited period of time the output of all the
plainer classes of goods will be sufBcient to meet the Indian
demand without the supply of goods from Lancashire."

One hardly need add at what price the Indian manu-
facturers obtain cheap cottons. The report of the Bombay
Factory Commission which was laid before Parliament in
August, 1888, contained facts of such horrible cruelty and
cupidity as would hardly be imagined by those who have
forgotten the disclosures of the inquiry made in this country
in 1840-42. The factory engines are at work, as a rule, from
5 A.M. till 7, 8, or 9 P.M., and the workers remain at work
for twelve, thirteen, fourteen hours, only releasing one an-
other for meals. In busy times it happens that the same set
of workers remain at the gins and presses night and day
with half an hour's rest in the evening. In some factories
the workers have their meals at the gins, and are so worn
out after eight and ten days' uninterrupted work that they
supply the gins mechanically " three parts asleep ".

" It is a sad tale of great want on one side, and cruel
cupidity on the other " the official report concludes. How-
ever, it would be absolutely erroneous to conclude that Indian
manufactures can compete with the British ones as long
as they continue the terrible exploitation of human labour
which we see now. Forty years ago the British manufac-
tures offered absolutely the same terrible picture of cruel
cupidity. But times will come when Indian workers will
restrain the cupidity of the capitalists, and the manufactures

APPENDIX. 229

of Bombay will be none the worse for that in the compe-
tition with the British manufactures.

I. — Irrigated Me.\dows in Italy.

In the Journal de I' Agriculture (2nd Feb., 1889) we find
the following about the marcites of Milan : —

" On part of these meadows water runs constantly, on
others it is only left running for ten hours every week. The
former give six crops every year; since February — 80 to 100
tons of grass, equivalent to twenty to twenty-five tons of
dry hay, being obtained from the hectare (eight to ten tons
per acre). Lower down, thirteen tons of dry hay per acre
is the regular crop. Taking eighty acres placed in average
conditions, they will yield fifty-six tons of green grass per
hectare, that is, fourteen tons of dry hay, or the food of three
milch cows to the hectare (two and a half acres). The rent
of such meadows is from £,?> to ^g 123. per acre."

For Indian corn, the advantages of irrigation are equally
apparent. On irrigated lands, crops of from seventy-eight
to eighty-nine bushels per acre are obtained, as against
from fifty-six to sixty-seven bushels on unirrigated lands, also
in Italy, and twenty-eight to thirty-three bushels in France
(Garola, Les Cereales).

As to the ways in which agriculture is ruined in Italy
we can best see them from the work of Mr. Beauclerck
{Rural Italy, London, r888). Speaking of the Milan pro-
vince, he remarks that we find there " one of the densest
agricultural populations in the world, congregated in a
country, of which half is occupied by arid mountains " (416
inhabitants to the square mile). " Flanders alone equals
Milan in density of population. The soil is not naturally
fertile, and an immense expenditure of capital and labour
has alone produced the richness of the land." But " the
taxation is fabulously high," as it attains 2620 francs per
square kilometre of the cultivated area. Altogether, Mr.
Beauclerck considers that rural Italy pays 300,000,000 francs
of direct taxes, out of returns not exceeding 1,000,000,000
francs, not to mention the salt tax, the tax on personal
property and the indirect taxation.

230 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

J. — The Channel Islands.

The excellent state of agriculture in Jersey and Guernsey
has often been referred to in the agricultural and general
literature of this country, so I need only refer to the works
of Mr. W. E. Bear {Journal of the Agricultural Society., 1888 ;
Quarterly Review, 1888; British Farmer, etc.) and to the
exhaustive work of D. H. Ansted and R. G. Latham, The Chan-
nel Islands, third edition, revised by E. Toulmin Nicolle
(London, Allen, 1893).

Many English writers, certainly not those just named, are
inclined to explain the successes obtained in Jersey by the
wonderful climate of the islands and the fertility of the soiL
As to climate, it is certainly true that the yearly record of
sunshine in Jersey is greater than in any English station.
It reaches from 1842 hours a year (1890) to 2300 (1893),
and thus exceeds the highest aggregate sunshine recorded in
any English station by from 168 to 336 hours (exclusively
high maximum in 1894) a year; May and August seeming
to be the best favoured months.* But, to quote from the
just mentioned work of Ansted and Latham : —

" There is, doubtless, in all the islands, and especially in
Guernsey, an absence of sunheat and of the direct action of the
sun's rays in summer, which must have its effect, and a
remarkable prevalence of cold, dry, east wind in late spring, re-
tarding vegetation " (p. 407). Every one who has spent, be
it only two or three weeks in late spring in Jersey, must
know by experience how true this remark is. Moreover,
there are the well-known Guernsey fogs, and " owing also
to rain and damp the trees suffer from mildew and blight,
as well as from various aphides ". The same authors re-
mark that the nectarine does not succeed in Jersey in the
open air " owing to the absence of autumn heat " ; that " the
wet autumns and cold summers do not agree with the
apricot," and so on.

If Jersey potatoes are, on the average, three weeks in
advance of those grown in Cornwall, the fact is fully explained
by the continual improvements made in Jersey in view of

* Ten Years of Sunshine in the British Isles, 1881-1890.

APPENDIX. 231

obtaining, be it ever so small, quantities of potatoes a few
days in advance, either by special care taken to plant them
out as soon as possible, protecting them from the cold winds,
or by choosing tiny pieces of land naturally protected or
better exposed. The difference in price between the earliest
and the later potatoes being immense, the greatest efforts
are made to obtain an early crop, and it would seem that
the potatoes begin to be grown earlier and earlier, so that
three or perhaps even four weeks have been won within the
last ten years.

The following table shows when the exporting season
began and what prices were realised per cabot ( = xf of ^
ton) on the very first day of export : —

s. d. s. d.

1883, May 22 12 o to 14 o

1884, „ 6 6 6 „ 8 o

1885, ,,19 60

1886, June 2 60,, 70

1887, May 24 8 o „ 10 o

1888, ,,29 8 o „ 10 o

i88g, ,,14 8 o „ 10 o

1890, „ 6 9 o „ 10 o

1891, ,, I 12 o „ 15 o

1892, .,17 12 o ,, 14 o

1893, April 24 8 3 „ 8 6

1894, ,,26 II 6

The decline of prices per ton is best seen from the fol-
lowing : —

1887.

1888.

1889.

1894.

Week ending : —

May 5

£18 2 6

» 12

II 9 2

.. 19

9 3 4

„ 26-28

£22 10 7

£20 12

6

£17 6

8

692

June 2

7 18 4

>. 9-II

10 14 7

10 14

7

6 14

4

6 13 4

, „ 16

6 IS 5

„ 23

8 6 8

„ 30

July 2 .

9 15 6

4 7

6

5 17

6 17 6

.., 7-

9 3 4

„ 14-16

5 12 7

2 10

2 18

6

6 17 6

., 30 •

6 II g

2 8

II

2 12

Aug. 20

676

2 10

2 12

232 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

As to the fertility of the soil, it is still worse advocacy,
because there is no area in the United Kingdom of equal
size which would be manured to such an extent as the area
of Jersey and Guernsey is by means of artificial manure.
In the seventeenth century, as may be seen from the first
edition of Falle's Jersey, published in 1694, the island '' did
not produce that quantity as is necessary for the use of the
inhabitants, who must be supplied from England in time
of peace, or from Dantzic in Poland ". In The Groans of
the Inhabitants of Jersey, published in London in 1709, we
find the same complaint. And Quayle, who wrote in 181 2
and quoted the two works just mentioned, in his turn com-
plained in these terms : " The quantity at this day raised
is quite inadequate to their sustenance, apart from the
garrison " (General View of the Agriculture and the Present
State of the Islands on the Coast of Normandy, London, 1815,
p. 77). And he added: "After making all allowance, the
truth must be told ; the grain crops are here foul, in some
instances execrably so ". And when we consult the modern
writers, Ansted, Latham and NicoUe, we learn that the soil
is by no means rich. It is decomposed granite, and easily
cultivable, but " it contains no organic matter besides what
man has put into it ".

This is certainly the opinion any one will come to if he
only visits thoroughly the island and looks attentively to its
soil — to say nothing of the Quenvais where, in Quayle's time,
there was " an Arabian desert " of sands and hillocks cover-
ing about seventy acres (p. 24), with a little better but still
very poor soil in the north and west of it. The fertility of
the soil has entirely been made, first, by the vraic (sea-weeds),
upon which the inhabitants have maintained communal
rights ; later on, by considerable shipments of manure, in
addition to the manure of the very considerable living stock
which is kept in the island ; and finally, by an admirably
good cultivation of the soil.

Much more than sunshine and good soil, it was the condi-
tions of land-tenure, and the low taxation which contributed
to the remarkable development of agriculture in Jersey.
First of all, the people of the Isles know but little of the

APPENDIX. 233

tax-collector. While the English pay, in taxes, an average
of 50s. per head of population ; while the French peasant
is over-burdened with taxes of all imaginable descriptions,
and the Milanese peasant has to give to the Treasury full
30 per cent, of his income — all taxes paid in the Channel
Islands amount to but los. per head in the town parishes
and to much less than that in the country parishes. Besides,
of indirect taxes, none are known but the 2s. 6d. paid for
each gallon of imported spirits and 9d. per gallon of im-
ported wine.

As to the conditions of land-tenure, the inhabitants have
happily escaped the action of Roman Law, and they continue
to live under the coutumier de Normandie (the old Norman
common law). Accordingly, more than one-half of the
territory is owned by those who themselves till the soil ;
there is no landlord to watch the crops and to raise the rent
before the farmer has ripened the fruit of his improvements ;
there is nobody to charge so much for each cart-load of
sea-weeds or sand taken to the fields; every one takes the
amount he likes, provided he cuts the weeds at a certain
season of the year, and digs out the sand at a distance of
sixty yards from the high-water mark. Those who buy land
for cultivation can do so without becoming enslaved to the
money-lender. One-fourth part only of the permanent rent
which the purchaser undertakes to pay is capitalised and has
to be paid down on purchase (often less than that), the
remainder being a perpetual rent in wheat which is valued
in Jersey at 50 to 54 sous de France per cabot. To seize
property for debt is accompanied with such difficulties that it
is seldom resorted to (Quayle's General View, pp. 41-46).
Conveyances of land are simply acknowledged by both parties
on oath, and cost nearly nothing. And the laws of inheri-
tance are such as to preserve the hdmestead notwithstand-
ing the debts that the father may have run into (ibid., pp.

35-41)-

After having shown how small are the farms in the islands
(from twenty to five acres, and very many less than that) —
there being " less than 100 farms in either island that exceed
twenty-five acres; and of these only about half a dozen in

234 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

Jersey exceed fifty acres "—Messrs. Ansted, Latham and
Nicolle remark : —

"In no place do we find so happy and so contented a
country as in the Channel Islands. . . ." " The system of
land-tenure has also contributed in no small degree to their
prosperity. . . ." "The purchaser becomes the absolute
owner of the property and his position cannot be touched
so long as the interest of these [wheat] rents be paid. He
cannot be compelled, as in the case of mortgage, to refund
the principal. The advantages of such a system are too patent
to need any further allusion." (The Channel Islands, third
edition, revised by E. Toulmin Nicolle, p. 401 ; see also p.

443-)

The following will better show how the cultivable area is

utilised in Jersey : —

{Wheat
Barley and here
Oats and rye
Beans and peas .
{Potatoes .
Turnips and swedes
Mangolds .
Other green crops
Clover, sainfoin and /For hay

grasses under rotation \ Not for hay

Permanent pasture or / For hay .

grass \Notforhay

Corn crops

Green crops .

1893.

1894.

Acres.

Acres

. 1526

1709

. 109

"3

. 286

499

12

16

• 7599

7007

. 126

III

219

232

. 382

447

. 2604

2842

• 2563

2208

. 989

1117

3120

3057

21,428

21,252

In 1889 there were under: —

Acres.

Small fruit 2487

Orchards .......... 156

Market gardens ........ 83

Nursery gardens ........ 30

Living Stock.

1893. 1894.

Horses used solely for agriculture . . . 2300 2252

Unbroken horses ...... 103 83

Mares solely for breeding 14 jg

Horses 2417 2351

APPENDIX. 23s

Cows and heifers in milk or in calf . . . 7004 670Q

Other cattle :— / t / s

Two years or more 760 864

One year to two years 2397 2252

Less than one year 2489 2549

Total cattle 12,650

12.374

Sheep, all ages ....... 335 332

Pigs, including sows for breeding . . . 5587 6021

Exports.

1887. 1888. 18S9.

OTMl% ....... 102 100 92

Cows and heifers 1395 1639 1629

Potatoes exported : —

Tons. I

^^?7 50,670 434,907

I°°° 60,527 242,110

1889 52,700 264,153

1^9° 54.110 293,681

I89I 66,840 487,642

1892 . . . . . . . . 66,332 376,535

I093 57.762 327,366

1894 ... 4 ... . 60,605 462,895

The areas under potatoes having been for the last two
years respectively 7599 and 7007 acres, the export value
per acre attained ^[^2-] 6s. in 1893, and £fi() is. in 1894.

As regards greenhouse culture, a friend of mine, who has
worked as a gardener in Jersey, has collected for me various
information relative to the productivity of culture under glass.
Out of it the following may be taken as a perfectly reliable
illustration, in addition to those given in the text : —

Mr. B.'s greenhouse has a length of 300 feet and a width
of 18 feet, which makes 5400 square feet, out of which 900
square feet are under the passage in the middle. The cul-
tivable area is thus 4500 square feet. There are no brick
walls, but brick pillars and boards are used for front walls.
Hot water heating is provided, but is only used occasionally,
to keep off the frosts in winter — the crops being early po-
tatoes (which require no heating), followed by tomatoes.
The latter are Mr. B.'s speciality. Catch crops of radishes,
etc., are taken. The cost of the greenhouse, without the

236 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

heating apparatus, is los. per running foot of greenhouse,
which makes ;£iSo for one-eighth of an acre under glass, or
a little less than 7d. per glass-roofed square foot.

The crops are : potatoes, four cabots per perch, i.e., three-
quarters of a ton of early potatoes from the greenhouse ; and
tomatoes, in the culture of which Mr. B. attains extraordinary
results. He puts in only 1000 plants, thus giving to his plants
more room than is usually given ; and he cultivates a corru-
gated variety which gives very heavy crops but does not fetch
the same prices as the smooth varieties. In 1896 his crop
was four tons of tomatoes, and so it would have been in
1897 — each plant giving an average of twenty pounds of fruit,
while the usual crop is from eight to twelve pounds per
plant.

The total crop was thus four and three-quarter tons of vege-
tables, to which the catch crops must be added — thus corre-
sponding to 85,000 lb. per acre (over 90,000 lb. with the catch
crops). I again omit the money returns, and only mention
that the expenditure for fuel and manure was about jQio a
year, and that the Jersey average is three men, each working
fifty-five hours a week (ten hours a day), for each acre under
glass.

K. — Planted Wheat.

T/ie Rothamsted Challenge.

Sir A. Cotton delivered, in 1893, before the Balloon Society,
a lecture on agriculture, in which lecture he warmly advocated
deep cultivation and planting the seeds of wheat wide apart.
He published it later on as a pamphlet {Lecture on Agri-
culture, 2nd edition, with Appendix. Dorking, r893). He
obtained, for the best of his sort of wheat, an average of
" fifty-five ears per plant, with three oz. of grain of fair
quality — perhaps sixty-three lbs. per bushel " (p. 10). This
corresponded to ninety bushels per acre — that is, his result
was very similar to those obtained at the Tomblaine and
Capelle agricultural stations by Grandeau and F. Dessprfez,
whose work seems not to be known to Sir A. Cotton. True,

APPENDIX. 237

Sir A. Cotton's experiments were not conducted, or rather
were not reported, in a thoroughly scientific way. But the
more desirable it would have been, either to contradict or to
confirm his statements by experiments carefully conducted
at some experimental agricultural station. This is, in fact,
what was expected from the veteran head of the Rothamsted
experimental farm, Sir John Lawes, even though the author of
the pamphlet may have been hard upon the general lines
followed in the Rothamsted experiments. Sir John Lawes
took, however, another course, and inserted in the 'Echo a
letter (reproduced in an Appendix to Sir A. Cotton's lecture),
in which we read the following : —

" There are, obviously, two important questions to consider,
first — whether so much as from 100 to 120 bushels of wheat
can be grown per acre on ordinary arable land? And
secondly, whether, if a crop of this magnitude can be grown,
it can be done at a cost which will give profit to the farmer?
If Sir A. Cotton, or any one else, will grow 1000 bushels on
ten acres of fairly average wheat land, spending as much as
he likes on the cultivation, I will give him ;^2 5o. Further,
in order to ascertain whether our country can grow sufficient
wheat to feed our population, and even, perhaps, for export
besides, upon from 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 acres, I will give
_;^iooo to Sir A. Cotton, or any one else, who will grow 100
bushels of wheat per acre, on ten separate acres of wheat land,
one in each of the ten English counties growing the largest
acreage of wheat at the present time ; the cost of production
being less than the value of the crop, so as to prove that
such crops could be grown profitably by our farmers."

I reprint this letter almost in full (italics are mine) because
I have already had letters from correspondents, and seen
public affirmations to the effect that Sir John Lawes had
offered ;^iooo to the person who would grow 100 bushels
to the acre, but that no one had answered his challenge.
Every one may see now that actually no such challenge has
ever been made.

The fact is this. All Rothamsted experiments were
carried on on plots of two-thirds and one-third of an acre.
And, from experiments on such a sra'p, the far-reaching

238 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

conclusion in agriculture as to the limits of profitable manur-
ing was arrived at at Rothamsted. The highest average crop
ever attained at Rothamsted on such plots, by any amount of
manuring, was thirty-six and a quarter bushels, and the
maximum crop obtained in the best season was fifty-six
bushels. Now Sir A. Cotton claims that as much as from
80 to 100 bushels to the acre can be obtained by means
of deep cultivation and planting wide apart in addition to
proper manuring, that is, nearly three times as much as the
Rothamsted average was for the best-manured plots. The
only fair challenge which could be made with reference to
such an assertion would be, in my opinion, to propose to grow
an average of 80 or 100 bushels (instead of the Rotham-
sted thirty-six and a quarter) for several years in succession
(bad and good seasons) on plots of the same she as the Rotham-
sted plots, i.e., one-third and two-thirds of an acre ; under
the condition, of course, that full account be kept, as it was
at Rothamsted, of the manure used and the labour required.
But such a challenge was not made, and it was proposed,
instead, to grow 1000 bushels on ten acres, in ten different
counties, in the second part of the challenge. To make a
challenge under such conditions — Sir John Lawes must well
know it himself — amounts to no challenge at all. Let us
hope, however, that some day the experiments of Hallett,
Cotton, Grandeau and Dessprfez will be repeated at Rotham-
sted as well, and that Sir John Lawes will give them as
brilliant a confirmation as he gave some time ago to Hell-
riegel's work on nitrification.

L. — Replanted Wheat.

A few words on this method which now claims the atten-
tion of the experimental stations may perhaps not be useless.

In Japan, rice is always treated in this way. It is treated
as our gardeners treat lettuce and cabbage ; that is, it is let
first to germinate ; then it is sown in special warm corners,
well inundated with water and protected from the birds by
strings drawn over the ground, Thirty-five to fifty-five days

APPENDIX. 239

later, the young plants, now fully developed and possessed
of a thick network of rootlets, are reflanUd in the open
ground. In this way the Japanese obtain from twenty to
thirty-two bushels of dressed rice to the acre in the poor
provinces, forty bushels in the better ones, and from sixty to
sixty-seven bushels in the best lands. The average, in six
rice growing states of North America, is at the same time only
nine and a half bushels.*

In China, replanting is also in general use, and conse-
quently the idea has been circulated in France by M. Eugfene
Simon and the late M. Toubeau, that replanted wheat could
be made a powerful means of increasing the crops in Western
Europe, t So far as I know, the idea has not yet been sub-
mitted to a practical test ; but when one thinks of the remark-
able results obtained by Hallett's method of planting; of
what the market gardeners obtain by replanting once and
even twice ; and of how rapidly the work of planting is done
by market gardeners in Jersey, one must agree that in re-
planted wheat we have a new opening worthy of the most
careful consideration. Experiments have not yet been made
in this direction ; but Prof. Grandeau, whose opinion I have
asked on this subject, wrote to me that he believes the
method must have a great future. Practical market gardeners
(Paris maraicher) whose opinion I have asked, see, of course,
nothing extravagant in that idea.

With plants yielding 1000 grains each — and in the Capelle
experiment they yielded an average of 600 grains — the yearly
wheat-food of one individual man (5.65 bushels or 265 lbs.),
which is represented by from 5,000,000 to 5,500,000 grains,
could be grown on a space of 250 square yards; while for
an experienced hand replanting would represent no more than
ten to twelve hours' work. With a proper machine-tool, the

* Dr. M. Fesca, Beitrdge zur Kenntniss der fapanesischen Landwirth-
schaft. Part ii., p. 33 (Berlin, 1893). The economy in seeds is also con.
siderable. While in Italy 250 kilogrammes to the hectare are sown, and
160 kilogrammes in South Carolina, the Japanese use only sixty kilo-
grammes for the same area. (Semler, Trofische Agrihultur, Bd. iii.,
pp. 20-28.)

t Eugene Simon, La cite chinoise (translated into English) ; Toubeau,
La repartition tnetriqtie des itnpots, ? vols., Paris (Guillaumin), i88o.

240 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

work could probably be very much reduced. In Japan, two
men and two women plant with rice three-quarters of an
acre in one day (Ronna, Les Irrigations, vol. iii., tSgo, p. 67
seq^. That means (Fesca, Japanesische Landwirthschaft, p.
33) from 33,000 to 66,000 plants, or, let us say, a minimum
of 8250 plants a day for one person. The Jersey gardeners
plant from 600 (inexperienced) to 1000 plants per hour (ex-
perienced).

M. — Imports of Vegetables to the United Kingdom.

That the land in this country is not sufficiently utilised for
market gardening, and that the largest portion of the vege-
tables which are imported from abroad could be grown in this
country, has been said over and over again within the last
few years.

It is certain that considerable improvements have taken
place lately — the area under market gardens, and especially
the area under glass for the growth of fruit and vegetables,
having largely been increased of late. Thus, instead of
38,957 acres, which were given to market-gardening in Great
Britain in 1875, there were, in 1894, 88,210 acres, exclusive
of vegetable crops on farms, given to that purpose i^he
Gardener's Chronicle, 20th April, 1895, p. 483). But that
increase remains a trifle in comparison with similar increases
in France, Belgium, and the United States. In France, the
area given to market gardening was estimated in 1892 by M.
Baltet (V horticulture dans les cinq parties du monde, Paris,
Hachette, 1895) at 1,075,000 acres — four times more, in pro-
portion to the cultivable area, than in this country, and the
most remarkable of it is that considerable tracts of land
formerly treated as uncultivable have been reclaimed for the
purposes of market gardening as also of fruit growing.

As things stand now in this country, we see that very large
quantities of the commonest vegetables, each of which could
be grown in this country, are imported.

Lettuces are imported — not only from the Azores or from
the south of France, but they continue until June to be im-
ported from France, where they are mostly grown — not in

APPENDIX. 241

the open air, but in frames. Early cucumbers, also grown in
frames, are largely imported from Holland, and are sold so
cheaply that many English gardeners have ceased to grow
them.* Even beetroot and pickling cabbage are imported
from Holland ; and while onions were formerly largely grown
in this country, we see that in 1894, 5,288,512 bushels of
onions, ^£765,049 worth, were imported from Belgium (chief
importer), Germany, Holland, France, and so on.

Again, that early potatoes should be imported from the
Azores and the south of France is quite natural. It is not
so natural, however, that more than 50,000 tons of potatoes
(58,060 tons, ;£52i,i4i worth, on the average during the
years 189 1-4) should be imported from the Channel Islands,
because there are hundreds if not thousands of acres in South
Devon, and most probably in other parts of the south coast
too, where early potatoes could be grown equally well. But
besides the 88,200 tons of early potatoes (_;£7 10,586 worth)
which are imported to this country, no less than 54,100 tons
of late potatoes, for which _;£44 1,300 are paid every year,
are imported from Holland, Germany and Belgium. And,
moreover, this country imported, during the same three years,
all sorts of green vegetables, for the sum of _;£i,027,4ii (as
against ^^467, 290 in 1885) from different countries,! while
thousands of acres lie idle, and the country population is
driven to the cities in search of work, without finding it.

Every one knows how well potatoes succeed in this country,
and what admirable sorts of potatoes have been bred by the
British growers. But the rent and the middleman absorb
the best profits of the grower. I could produce striking
facts to prove this last assertion concerning the middleman ;
but similar facts having already been produced in heaps, it
would be useless to swell by more figures an evidence al-
ready overwhelming. J

* The Gardener's Chronicle, 20th April, 1895, p. 483.

t Ibid.

X Cf. W. Bear's British Farmer and His Competitors, p. 151.

16

242 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

N. — Market Gardening in Belgium.

In 1885 the superficies given to market gardening in Bel-
gium was 99,600 acres. Now, a Belgian professor of agri-
culture, who has kindly supplied me with notes on this
subject, writes : —

" The area has considerably increased, and I believe it can
be taken at 112,000 acres (45,000 hectares), if not more.''
And further on : " Rents in the neighbourhood of the big
towns, Antwerp, Liege, Ghent and Brussels, attain as much
as ;£s i6s. and ^8 per acre ; the cost of instalment is from
;£i3 to £2^ per acre; the yearly cost of manure, which is
the chief expense, attains from ^S to ;£i6 per acre the first
year, and then from ^£5 to ^& every year ". The gardens
are of the average size of two and a half acres, and in each
garden from 200 to 400 frames are used. About the Bel-
gian market-gardeners the same remark must be made as
has been made concerning the French maraichers. They
work awfully hard, having to pay extravagant rents, and to lay
money aside, with the hope of some day being able to buy
a piece of land, and to get rid of the blood-sucker who
absorbs so much of their money returns ; having moreover
every year to buy more and more frames in order to obtain
their produce earlier and earlier, so as to fetch higher prices
for it, they work like slaves. But it must be remembered
that in order to obtain the same amount of produce under
glass, in greenhouses, the work of three men only, working
fifty-five hours a week, is required in Jersey for cultivating one
acre of land under glass.

O. — Petty Trades in the Lyons Region.

The neighbourhoods of St. Etienne are a great centre for
all sorts of industries, and among them the petty trades oc-
cupy an important place. Iron works and coal mines with
their high smoking chimneys ; noisy manufactories ; roads
blackened by coal, and a poor vegetation, give the country
the well-known aspects of the "Black Country". In certain

APPENDIX.

243

towns, such as St. Chamond, one finds numbers of big fac-
tories in which thousands of women are employed in the
fabrication of passementerie. But side by side with the great
industry the petty trades also maintain a high development.
Thus we have first the fabrication of silk ribbons, in which
no less than 50,000 men and women were employed in the
year 1885. Only 3000 or 4000 looms were located then in
the factories; while the remainder — that is, from 1200 to
1400 looms — belonged to the workers themselves, both at
St. Etienne and in the surrounding country.* As a rule the
women and the girls spin the silk or make the winding off,
while the father with his sons weave the ribbons. I saw
these small workshops in the suburbs of St. Etienne, where
complicated ribbons (with interwoven addresses of the manu-
facture), as well as ribbons of high artistic finish, were woven
in three to four looms, while in the next room the wife pre-
pared the dinner and attended to household work.

There was a time when the wages were high in the ribbon
trade (reaching over ten francs a day), and M. Euvert wrote
me that half of the suburban houses of St. Etienne had been
built by the passementiers themselves. But the affairs took a
very gloomy aspect when a crisis broke out in 1884. No
orders were forthcoming, and the ribbon weavers had to live
on casual earnings. AIL their economies were soon spent.
" How many," M. Euvert wrote, " have been compelled to
sell for a few hundred francs the loom for which they had
paid as many thousand francs.'' What an effect this crisis
has had on the trade I could not say, as I have no recent
information about this region. Very probably a great
number of the ribbon weavers have emigrated to St. Etienne,
where artistic weaving is continued, while the cheapest sorts
of ribbon must be made in factories.

The manufacture of arms occupies from 5000 to 6000
workers, half of whom are in St. Etienne, and the remainder

* I am indebted for these figures and the following information to M.
V. Euvert, President of the Chamber of Commerce of St. Etienne, who
sent me, while I was in the Clairvaux prison, in April, 1885, a most
valuable sketch of the various industries of the region, in reply to a letter
of mine. I avail myself of the opportunity for expressing to M. Euvert
my best thanks for his courtesy.

244 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

in the neighbouring county. All work i.s done in small work-
shops, save in the great arm factory of the State, which
sometimes will employ from 10,000 to 15,000 persons, and
sometimes only a couple of thousand men.

Another important trade in the same region is the manu-
facture of hardware, which is all made in small workshops,
in the neighbourhoods of St. Etienne, Le Chambon, Firminy,
Rive de Giers, and St. Bonnet le Chiteau. The work is
pretty regular, but the earnings are low as a rule. And yet
the peasants continue to keep to those trades, as they cannot
go on without some industrial occupation during part of the
year.

The yearly production of silk stuffs in France attained no
less than 7,558,000 kilogrammes in 1881;* and most of the
5,000,000 to 6,000,000 kilogrammes of raw silk which were
manufactured in the Lyons region were manufactured by
hand.t Twenty years before, i.e., about 1865, there were
only from 6000 to 8000 power-looms, and when we take into
account both the prosperous period of the Lyons silk industry
about r876, and the crisis which it underwent in 1880-6, we
cannot but wonder about the slowness of the transformation
of the industry. Such is also the opinion of the President
of the Lyons Chamber of Commerce, who wrote me that the
domain of the power-loom is increased every year, " by in-
cluding new kinds of stuffs, which formerly were reputed as
unfeasible in the power-looms ; but,'' he added, " the trans-
formation of small workshops into factories still goes on so
slowly that the total number of power-looms reaches only
from 20jOOo to 25,000 out of an aggregate of from 100,000
to IT 0,000 ".

The leading features of the Lyons silk industry are the
following : —

The preparatory work — winding off, warping and so on —

* 7,558,000 kilogrammes in 1881, as against 5,134,000 kilogrammes in
1872. yournal de la Societe de Statistiquc de Paris, September, 1883.

1 1 take these figures from a detailed letter which the President of the
Lyons Chamber of Commerce kindly directed to me in April, 1885, to
Clairvaux, in answer to my inquiries about the subject. I avail myself
of this opportunity for addressing to him my best thanks for his most
interesting communication.

APPENDIX. 245

is mostly made in small workshops, chiefly at Lyons, with
only a few workshops of the kind in the villages. Dyeing
and finishing are also made, of course, in great factories,
and it is especially in dyeing, which occupies 4000 to 5000
hands, that the Lyons manufacturers have attained their
highest repute. Not only silks are dyed there, but also
cottons and wools, and not only for France, but also to some
extent for London, Manchester, Vienna, and even Moscow.
It is also in this branch that the best machines have to be
mentioned.*

As to the weaving, it is made, as we just saw, on from
20,000 to 25,000 power-looms and from 75,000 to 90,000
hand-looms, which partly are at Lyons (from 15,000 to 18,000
hand-looms in 1885) and chiefly in the villages. The work-
shops, where one might formerly find several compagnons
employed by one master, have a tendency to disappear, the
workshops mostly having now but from two to three hand-
looms, on which the father, the mother and the children are
working together. In each house, in each storey of the Croix
Rousse, you find until now such small workshops. The
fdbricant gives the general indications as to the kind of
stuff he desires to be woven, and his draughtsmen design the
pattern, but it is the workman himself who must find the way
to weave in threads of all colours the patterns sketched on
paper. He thus continually creates something new ; and
many improvements and discoveries have been made by
workers whose very names remain unknown, t

The Lyons weavers have retained until now the character
of being the elite of their trade in higher artistic work in silk
stuffs. The finest, really artistic brocades, satins and velvets,
are woven in the smallest workshops, where one or two looms
only are kept. Unhappily the unsettled character of the
demand for such a high style of work is often a cause of
misery amongst them. In former times, when the orders for

* Lafabrique lyonnaise de soieries. Son fosse, son present. Imprim^
par ordre de la Chambre de Commerce de Lyon, 1873. (Published in
connection with the Vienna Exhibition.)

t Marius Morand, L' organisation ouvriere de lafabrique lyonnaise;
paper read before the Association Fran9aise pour I'avancement des
Sciences, in 1873.

246 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

higher sorts of silks became scarce, the Lyons weavers re-
sorted to the manufacture of stuffs of lower qualities :
foulards, crepes, tulles, of which Lyons had the monopoly
in Europe. But now the commoner kinds of goods are
manufactured by the million, on the one side by the fac-
tories of Lyons, Saxony, Russia and Great Britain, and on the
other side by peasants in the neighbouring departments of
France, as well as in the Swiss villages of the cantons of
Basel and Zurich, and in the villages of the Rhine provinces,
Italy and Russia.

The emigration of the French silk industry from the
towns to the villages began long ago, i.e., about 1817, but it
was especially in the sixties that this movement took a great
development. About the year 1872 nearly 90,000 hand-looms
were scattered, not only in the RhSne department, but also
in those of Ain, Isfere, Loire, Sa6ne-et-Loire, and even those
of DrSme, Ard&che and Savoie. Sometimes the looms were
supplied by the merchants, but most of them were bought
by the weavers themselves, and it was especially women and
girls who worked on them at the hours free from agriculture.
But already since 1835 the emigration of the silk industry
from the city to the villages began in the shape of great
factories erected in the villages, and such factories continue
to spread in the country, making terrible havoc amidst the
rural populations.

When a new factory is built in a village it attracts at once
the girls, and partly also the boys of the neighbouring
peasantry. The girls and boys are always happy to find an
independent livelihood which emancipates them from the
control of the family. Consequently, the wages of the fac-
tory girls are extremely low. At the same time the distance
from the village to the factory being mostly great, the girls
cannot return home every day, the less so as the hours of
labour are usually long. So they stay all the week at the
factory, in barracks, and they only return home on Saturday
evening ; while at sunrise on Monday a waggon makes the
tour of the villages, and brings them back to the factory.
Barrack life — not to mention its moral consequences — soon
renders the girls quite unable to work in the fields. And,

APPENDIX.

247

when they are grown up, they discover that they cannot main-
tain themselves at the low wages offered by the factory ; but
they can no more return to peasant life. It is easy to see what
havoc the factory is thus doing in the villages, and how un-
settled is its very existence, based upon the very low wages
offered to country girls. It destroys the peasant home, it
renders the life of the town worker still more precarious on
account of the competition it makes to him ; and the trade
itself is in a perpetual state of unsettledness.

P. — Small Industries at Paris.

It would be impossible to enumerate here all the varieties
of small industries which are carried on at Paris ; nor would
such an enumeration be complete, because every year new in-
dustries are brought into life. I therefore will mention only
a few of the most important industries.

A great number of them are connected, of course, with
ladies' dress. The confections, that is, the making of various
parts of ladies' dress, occupy no less than 22,000 operatives
at Paris, and their production attains ;£3, 000,000 every year,
while gowns give occupation to 15,000 women, whose annual
production is valued at ^£2, 400,000. Linen, shoes, gloves,
and so on, are as many important branches of the petty
trades and the Paris domestic industries, while one-fourth
part of the stays which are sewn in France (_;£5oo,ooo out of
;£2, 000,000) are made at Paris.

Engraving, book-binding, and all kinds of fancy stationery,
as well as the manufacture of musical and mathematical in-
struments, are again as many branches in which the Paris
workmen excel. Basket-making is another very important
item, the finest sorts only being made in Paris, while the
plainest sorts are made in the above-mentioned centres
(Haute Mame, Aisne, etc.). Brushes are also made in small
workshops, the trade being valued at ;£8oo,ooo both at
Paris and in the neighbouring department of Oise.

For furniture, there are at Paris as many as 4340 work-
shops, in which three or four operatives per workshop are

248 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.

employed on the average. In the watch trade we find 2000
workshops with only 6000 operatives, and their production,
about _;^i,ooo,ooo, reaches nevertheless nearly one-third part
of the total watch production in France. The maroquinerie
gives the very high figure of ;£5oo,ooo, although it employs
only 1000 persons, scattered in 280 workshops, this high figure
itself testifying to the high artistic value of the Paris leather
fancy goods. The jewelry, both for articles of luxury, and
for all descriptions of cheap goods, is again one of the
specialities of the Paris petty trades ; and another well-known
speciality is the fabrication of artificial flowers. Finally, we
must mention the carriage and saddlery .trades, which are
carried on in the small towns round Paris ; the making of
fine straw hats ; glass cutting, and painting on glass and
china ; and numerous workshops for fancy buttons, attire
in mother-of-pearl, and small goods in horn and bone.

Q. — Petty Trades in Germany.

The literature of the small industries in Germany being
very bulky, the chief works upon this subject may be found,
either in full or reviewed, in Schmoller's Jahrbiicher, and in
Conrad's Sammlung national-'dkonomischer und statistischer
Abhandlungen. For a general review of the subject and rich
bibliographical indications, Sch!5nberg's Volkwirthschaftslehre,
vol. ii., which contains excellent remarks about the proper
domain of small industries (p. 401 seq.), as well as the above-
mentioned publication of K. Biicher {Untersuchungen iiber die
Lage des Handwerks in Deutschland), will be found most valu-
able. The work of O. Schwarz, Die Betriebsformen der modernen
Grossindustrie (in Zeitschrift fiir Staatswissenschaft, vol. xxv.,
P- S3S); is interesting by its analysis of the respective ad-
vantages of both the great and the small industries, which
brings the author to formulate the following three factors in
favour of the former: (i) economy in the cost of motive
power ; (2) division of labour and its harmonic organisation ;
and (3) the advantages offered for the sale of the produce.
Of these three factors, the first is more and more ehminated

APPENDIX. 249

every year by the progress achieved in the transmission of
power; the second exists in small industries as well, and to
the same extent, as in the great ones (watchmakers, toymakers,
and so on) ; so that only the third remains in full force ;
but this factor as already mentioned in the text of this book,
is a social factor which entirely depends upon the degree of
development of the spirit of association amongst the pro-
ducers. As to Schwarz's figures relative to the higher pro-
ductivity of great spinning mills as compared with smaller
ones, it remains to be known whether the large mills which
he mentions are not more modern than the small ones, and
are not provided, therefore, with better machinery. One
conclusion of Schwarz is, however, absolutely correct : small
industries, unless they are engaged in the production of
artistic goods, as is the case at Paris, Lyons, Warsaw, Vienna,
and so on, can thrive only in connection with agriculture.

ALPHABETICAL INDEX.

Aberdeen, Gordon's College, 191 ; daily schools, 192.

Adulteration of manure and seeds, 67.

Agassiz, 204 note.

Agricultural Gazette, 97 note.

Agricultural labourers, numbers in Great Britain, 47; wages, in Russia,

74 note.
Agricultural machinery in Russia, 14 ; as a petty trade, 175.
Agriculture, 40 seq.; additional hands periodically required, 182; in

Belgium, 55-59, 87, 94 ; in the Channel Islands, 88-92 ; in China,

102; in France, 53-55, 72; in Great Britain, 43-53, 59; in Italy, 94;

in Japan, 102, 238 ; in the United States, 75-82 ; tropical (Semler's

work), 239 note.
Aldershot, 95.
Alenfon, weaving, 145.
Alsace, spinning mills, 224.
American competition, 75.

Amiens, industries, 143 ; market-gardening, 108.
Anjou, province of, fruit culture, 107.
Annates agronomiques, 92 note.
Annuaire statistique de la Belgique, 56 note.
Ansted, The Channel Islands, 230, 232-234.
Applied science, a misleading name, 208.
Arithmetic, present waste of time in teaching it, ig6.
Armstrong, Sir William, shipbuilding in Japan, 28, 42.
Art and handicraft, 210.
Atwood's machine, 197.
Augsburg, spinning mills, 224.
Australia, 34.

Austria, mining and textiles, 225.
Austria-Hungary, growth of industries, 22.

B., Mr., greenhouse, 235.

Backbarrow, 136.

Baden, spinning mills, 224.

Haines, Edward, Yorkshire, Past and Present, 135.

Baltet, Horticulture, etc., 82, 104, log, no, 240; in the United States,

82.
Barfleur, 105.

Barral, Dictionary of Agriculture, 64, 93, 94.
Basel, silks, 36.

Bashford, Mr., greenhouses in Jersey, ir3.
Baudrillart, on the agricultural populations of Anjou, 107 ; of Normandj .

144, 147.

252 INDEX.

Bavaria, butter, 73 note; spinning mills, 225.

Bear, Mr. W. E., on Jersey greenhouses, 114, 118; works and papers

on Channel Islands, 230 ; The British Farmer and his Competitors,

73 note ; article on wheat growing in Quarterly Review, 73 note.
Beauclerck, Rural Italy, 229.
Beetroot, crops, 61.
Belgium, artisans, 172 note; greenhouses, grapes, iig; land, use made

of, 55 ; market-gardening, 242 ; petty trades, people employed in,

172,
Berkley, Mr., address on iron trade in America, 29.
Bevan, Guide to English Industries, 136.
Birmingham, gun and rifle trade, 137.
Block, Prof. Maurice, r66.
Bobbins and reels made by hand, 139.
Bohemia, industries, 22.
Boitel, Herbages et Prairies naturelles, 93.
Bombay, spinning mills, 224.
Booth, Charles, 138.

Boston, lettuce grown by electric light, 82; technical school, igi.
Bovio, industry in Italy, 23.
Brain work and manual work, 184 seq.
Bramwell, Sir Frederick, 187.
Brazil, growth of industries, 24.
Breeding of new cereals, 95 seq.
Bremen, cotton exchange, 19.
Brindley, 185.

British Iron Trade Association, 19, 20.
Buecher, Karl, Researches into the conditions of the artisans in Germany,

162, 248.

Canada, efforts made to promote agriculture, 79, 80 note.

Capelle, experimental station, 99, 236, 239.

Carpenter, Edward, on Sheffield cutlery, 134.

Carter, breeding of new cereals, gg.

Caucasus, silk industry, 35 ; petty trades, 174.

Chambers of Commerce, 25 ;*of St. Etienne, 243 ; of Lyons, 244 ; La

fabrique lyonnaise de soieries, 245.
Champion, Mr., heavy crops of beet, 61.
Channel Islands, 88 seq., 230 seq.; work by Ansted, Latham and Nicolle,

230-234 (see Jersey and Guernsey).
Chapman, Vice-Consul, 24.
Chemistry, 207 note.

Cherbourg and neighbourhoods, market-gardening, 105.
Chicago, lettuce grown by electricity, 82; manual training school, igi.
Children, overwork, 216.
China, industries, 34, 38 ; rice culture, 239.
Clausius, his second law, 208.

Combinations of petty trades' workers, obstacles to, 167.
Comb making, 153.

Commission, Parliamentary, on depression of trade, 29.
Concentrical courses in schools, 194.

Conclusions, on intensive culture, 120; of the book, 213 seq.
Congo, 34.

Conrad's Sammlung, 248.
Co-operative basket making, 152 ; dairies, 153 ; Wholesale Co-operative

Society's Annual, 96 note.

INDEX. 253

Cornell University, igo.

Cornwall, potatoes, 8g note.

Cotton, Sir A., Lecture on Agriculture, 236 ; Rothamsted challenge, 236.

Cotton industry, its growth in different countries, 34.

Courtois-Gerard, Manuel de culture maraUhere, 64 note, 65.

Crisis, industrial, of 1886-87, 29.

Daily Telegraph, correspondence on German competition, 18.

Darwin, 204, 205.

Davy, Humphrey, mechanical theory of heat, 203.

Dellavos, methods of technical training, igo.

Derbyshire, petty trades, 136.

Dessprez, Fl., on planted wheat, 99, 100, 236.

Devon, South, 8g note.

Division of labour, i, 214.

Dodge, J. R., American competition, 76; Annual Report on Agriculture,

76; Farm and Factory, preface v., 76; industries of the United

States, 29.
Du Camp, Maxime, 160 note.
Dudley, chain makers, 136.
Dumazet, Ardouin, Voyage en France; agriculture, 105, io5, 108, log

petty trades in France, 144, r46-i4g, 151, 152, t58.
Dundee, jute trade, 26.
Dybowski, Prof., on French market-gardening, 64.

Economical journal, 226.

Economist, 14 note, 26.

Education, integrated, 188.

Electricity, in the service of the petty trades, 154, 156 ; theory of, 208.

Engel, statistical researches, 216.

English Illustrated Magazine, 136 note.

Esmarck, 204 note.

Euvert, V., industries at St. Etienne, 243 note.

Exports from the United Kingdom, 32.

Factories and fields, 217.

Falle, Jersey, 232.

Fesca, Dr. M., work on Japanese agriculture, 23g note, 240.

Fitzroy, weather forecasts, 2og.

Flanders, East, agriculture, 60, 87.

Flux, Mr., position of United Kingdom in international trade, 226.

Fodder plants, various crops of, 62 note.

Food, labour required to grow it, 217 seq.

Forum, preface vi.

Fougeres, domestic industries, 147.

France, chief imports, 221 ; growth of industries, g ; growth of popula-
tion and of wheat crop since I78g, 85 ; land, use made of, 53 ; petty
trades : basket making, 152 ; combined with small farming, 148 ;
cottons, 146; cutlery, 151; drills, 145; hardware and locks, 150;
iron goods, 150 ; lace making, 145 ; linen handkerchiefs, 146 ; marble
goods, I4g; numbers of people employed in, 141; pottery, 151;
weaving in hand looms, 142, 145 ; wood work, I4g, 150 ; in Brittany,
148 ; in Nievre and Haute Marne, 150 ; in Normandy, 144, I4g ; in
the Jura hills, 152-154; in the Lyons region, 155 seq., and appendix
O ; at Paris, I5g, and appendix P.

254 INDEX.

Francke, Growth of Textile Industries in Germany, i8.

Fream, Prof. W., Rothamsted Experiments, 44.

Fresnaye, 150.

Fruit exports, from Belgium, log ; from France, 107.

Fruit growing, in Anjou, 107 ; near Paris, 106 ; in the valley of the Rhone,

108.
Fulton, 207.

Gsewernitz, see Schulze Ga;wernitz.

Galerie du Travail, 160.

Galileo, 184.

Gardener^s Chronicle, 104, 240.

Garola, Prof., Les cereales, 87, 98, 229.

Geometry, discovery versus learning by heart, 195 ; methods of teaching

it, igo.
Germany, cotton industry, 224 ; do., compared with other countries,

224; "German competition," 20; growth of industries, 10, 11;

machinery, 223 ; mining and iron industry, 222 ; petty trades,

162-171; literature of the same, appendix Q ; potato crops obtained,

92.
Gien, china buttons, 151.

Giffen, Mr., position of United Kingdom in international trade, 32, 226.
Girard, Prof. Aime, on potato growing, 92.
Glacial period, 204 note.
Godwin, 83.
Goethe, quoted, 211.
Goppart, M., crops of fodder plants, 61 ; Manual of Indian Corn Culture,

95-
Gordon's College, igi.

Grandeau, Prof., planted wheat, gg, 100, 236, 238 ; wheat crops, 86.
Great Britain, commercial supremacy of, 226 ; cultivable area, 43 ; growth

of industries, 6 ; market-gardening, 240 ; land, use made of, compared

with France and Belgium, 50-58 ; petty trades in, 133 ; vegetables,

imports to, 240.
Green, Vice-Consul, on Russian agricultural machinery, 14 note.
Greenhouse culture, 112 seq., 235.
Gressent, M., Poiager moderne, 64 note.
Gros, M., crops of beet and carrots, 61.
Grove, 208.
Guernsey, agriculture and horticulture, 230 seg.; greenhouse culture, 115,

118.
Guyot, Alpine boulders, 204 note'.

Hallett, Major, "pedigree cereals," 95 sey.

Ham, Ch. H., Manual Training, igi.

Handicraft, methods of teaching, igg.

Haute Marne, 150.

Hennebout, 148.

Holland, imports of vegetables from, to United Kingdom, 241.

Hope, Colonel, g5.

Horticulture, 104-120.

Hungary, industries, 22 ; mining, 225.

India, growth of industries, 24 ; progress of cotton manufacture, 227.
Indian corn, high crops, 81.

INDEX.

2SS

Industries, growth of, in Austria-Hungary, 22 ; in Bohemia, 22 ; in Brazil,
24 ; in France, 9 ; in Germany, 10, 17 ; in India, 24 ; in Italy, 23 ;
in Japan, 27 ; in Mexico, 24 ; in Russia, 12 ; in Spain, 24 ; in the
United States, 28 ; scattering of, 183 ; industries and agriculture,
126 seq.

Integrated education, 188.

Integration of labour, 5, 212.

Invention, its distinctive features, 185, 209.

Iowa, methods of farming, 78 ; State's fair, 80.

Iron and Steel Institute, ig.

Irrigated meadows, in France, 93, 94 ; at Milan, 94, 229 ; Boitel's work,

93-

Issaieff, Prof., combinations of workers, 168 ; cutlery in Auvergne, 152 ;
petty trades in Germany, 162.

Italy, growth of industries, 23 ; irrigated meadows, 229 ; silks, 36 ; spin-
ning mills, 224.

Japan, growth of industries, 27, 28; rice culture, 238, 240; Dr. Fesca's

work, 239 note.
Jersey, 88 seq., 230 seq. ; Ansted's work, 230, 232 ; Bear's work and

papers on, 114, 230; cUmate, 230; Falle's work, 232; greenhouses,

113; "Groans of Inhabitants," 232 ; land laws and taxation, 232;

Latham's work, 230, 232 ; potato growing, 8g ; Quayle's work,

232 ; soil, 232 ; speed of planting, 240.
Joule, mechanical equivalent of heat, 208.
jfournal d'Agricultune pratique, 93 note.
yournal de V Agriculture, 229.
yournal des Economistes, 92 note.
journal of Horticulture, on grape growing in England, 120 ; on potato

growing in Jersey, 89 note.
jfournal of the Royal Agricultural Society, 96 note, 230.

Kent, hop picking, 181.
Kercliove de Denterghen, 88 note.
Kindergartens, 193.
Knight, Mr., heavy potato crops, 91.

Lake District, petty trades, 136, 139.

Land laws in Jersey, 88, 232.

Latham, R. J., The Channel Islands, 230, 233-235.

Lawes, Sir J. B., on crops in United Kingdom, 43 ; yearly food, 44 note ;

challenge to Sir A. Cotton, 236 seq,
Lecouteux, he ble, 76 note.
Lee, Mr. Henry, 25.
Leeds, cloth trade, 135.
Leibnitz, 184.
Leicester, 137.

Lettuce grown by electric light, 82.
Lille, 143.
Linnaeus, 184.
Liverpool and Bremen, 19.
Live stock, area required to keep it, 61.
Lodge farm, 95.

Lodging, work required to provide it, 214.
Lodz (Poland), 16.

2S6 INDEX.

Lomonosoff, mechanical theory of heat, 203.
London, petty trades, 138.
Loudeac, 148.

Luxemburg, Grand Duchy of, iron industry, 222.
Lyell, 204 note.

Lyons, silks, 156 ; (? the) Lyons industrial region, 155 seq., appendix O,
242.

Malthus, his doctrine, 83.

Manchester and neighbouring towns, 179.

Manitoba, farming, 78.

Maraichers, 63 ; opinion on replanted wheat, 239.

Market-gardening, 60 seq. ; in Belgium, 242 ; in France, 104 ; in Great

Britain, 104, and appendix M ; at Roscoff, 105.
Mark Lane Express, costs of wheat growing, 73 note, 74.
Marx, Karl, on concentration of capital, 163 note.
Mathematics at Moscow technical school, iSg.
Mayer, mechanical equivalent of heat, 208.
Mexico, growth of industries, 24.
Microbes, fertilisation of the soil by, 64 note.
Middlemen in England, 74, 241.
Milan, irrigated meadows, 94, 229.
Montreuil, peaches, 106.

Morand, Marius, Organisation onvriere de lafabrique lyonnaise, 245 note.
Moscow, Satistical Committee, 173 ; technical school, 189.
Murdoch, 187.
Murray's Dictionary, 206.
Muslins, at Tarare, 157.

Naphtha as fuel in Russia, 15.

Nature, on American iron trade, 29 note.

Neufch^tel, 150.

Newton, 184.

NicoUe, E. Toulmin, The Channel Islands, 230.

Nievre, 150.

Nineteenth Century, preface vi., 80 note, 96 note.

Nogent, cutlery, 151.

Norman customary law, 233.

Normandy, agriculture, 107 ; petty trades, 142 seq.

Northampton, 137.

Norwich and Ipswich, 137.

Nottingham, lace factories, 200.

Oetken, on American competition, 78.

Ogilvie, Dr., Gordon's College at Aberdeen, igi.

Orizaba, cotton mills, 24.

Orleans and neighbourhood, industries, 146.

Over-productioij, its meaning, 31.

Oyonnax, comb-making, 153.

Panissieres, silks, 157.

Paris, emporium of petty trades, 159 ; market-gardening, 62-67 ; Petty

trades, appendix P, 247.
Pavlovo, cutlery village, 135, 178.

INDEX. 257

Petty trades, conclusions, 177 seq. ; precarious conditions of some of them,
131 ; transformation and struggles, 132 ; variety and division, 128 seq. ;
and great industries in Germany, 165 seq., 248 ; in Belgium, 171 ; in
France, 140 seq., 242 ; in Germany, 162-171 ; in Russia, 173-176 ; in
Switzerland, 171 ; at Paris, 247.

Philadelphia Exhibition, 189.

Physics, methods of teaching it, 197.

Planted wheat, 95 seq., appendix K, 236.

Piatt, Mr. James, 25.

Ponce, M., Culture maraichere, 64 note ; his orchard, 65.

Potato growing, by Girard, 92 ; by Mr. Knight, 91 ; in Germany, 92 ;
in Jersey, 89, 230.

Prison work, 149.

Puris, M., irrigation, 94 note.

Quayle, General View of the Agriculture and present State of the Islands

on the Coasts of Normandy, 232.
Quenvais (Jersey), 232.

Rathgen, Japan's Volkwirthschaft, etc., 28 note.

Redditch, needles, 136.

Rennes, 145.

Rennie, 185, 207.

Replanted wheat, 102, appendix L, 238.

Reuleaux, Theoretische Kinematik, 188.

Reybaud, Le Colon, 143, 144, 157.

Rhone, river, its banks, culture on, 156.

Rice culture in Japan and China, 238.

Risler, Physiologie et Culture du ble, 87 note.

Rivers, Th., The Orchard Houses, etc., 112.

Roanne, great and small industries, 158.

Robinson, Prof., 185.

Rogers, Thorold, on economic interpretation of history, 138, 166, 205,

Ronna, Prof., Agriculture aux Etats Unis, 76 note ; Irrigations, 95 ; rice-
growing in Japan, 240.

Roscoe, 136 note.

Roscoff (Brittany) , market-gardening, 105.

Rothamsted experiments, 44 ; challenge to Sir A. Cotton, 236 seq. ; size
of experimental plots, 237.

Roubaix, cotton weaving, 143.

Rouen, weaving, 144, 145.

Rumford, mechanical theory of heat, 203.

Russia, cost of wheat growing, 73 ; growth of industries, 12 seq., 221 ;
decrease of imports, 16 ; petty trades : committee on, 173 ; in-
quiries made by the zemstvos, 173 ; do., by the Moscow statistical
committee, 173 ; numbers of workers employed in, 173 ; relation to
agriculture, 175 ; returns, 174 ; variety of produce, 174 ; spinning
mills, 225.

Saffelare district, agriculture, 60, 87.

Sagnier, H., on irrigation, 94 note.

St. Chamond, 243.

St. Etiehne, industries in, appendix O, 242.

St. Helier, harbour (Jersey), 89.

17

258 INDEX.

St. Petersburg, i8? ; university students of mathematics, i8g.
St. Quentin, 143.
Sainte Claude, briar pipes, 154.
Sale, difficulty of, in petty trades, 167.
Saunders, W., breeding of new cereals, gg.
Sax, Em. Hans, petty trades in Germany, 162, 164.
Saxony, spinning mills, 225.
Schaeffle, on American competition, 78.
Schmoller, yahrbuch, 76 note, 248.
Schonberg, Volkwirthschaftslehre, 248.

Schulze Gaewernitz, on cotton industry in Germany, 25, i6g.
Schwarz, O., Forms of Great Industries, 248.
Science, its powers, 2ig ; applied science, 208.

Semler, on American competition, 78 ; Tropical Agriculture, 23g note.
Sheffield cutlery, 134.
Sheriff, Mr., breeding of new cereals, gg.
" Shoddy " factories, 156.
Silk trade, 35, appendix O, 242.

Simon Eugene, La cite chinoise, 23g ; replanted wheat, 23g.
Small industries, 126 seq.
Smeaton, 185, 206.
Smiles, Mr., quoted, 207.
Smith, Adam, i, 167.

Soil, made and removed when quitting tenancy, 64.
South Staffordshire, 136.
Spain, growth of industries, 24.
Stanley, Mr., 34.

Statesman's Yearbook, 27 note, 33.
Station Agronomique de I'Est, gg, 100.
Stephenson, 185, 206.
Sunshine in Jersey and in England, 230.
Sussex, hop picking, 181.
Sweating system, 130.
Swiss watch makers, 131.

Switzerland, income from tourists, 30 ; petty trades, 171 ; spinning mills,
225.

Tarare, muslins, etc., 157.

Taxation of agriculture in Italy, 22g ; in Jersey, 232.

Telford, 207.

Textile Recorder, 27, 2g, 227.

Thierry, Augustin, 205.

Thiers, cutlery, 151.

Thompson, D., on grape culture, 112.

Thun, A. M., petty trades in Germany, 162.

Times, g6.

Tisserand, growth of population and wheat crop in France, 86 note.

Tomblaine, experimental station, 102, 236.

Toubeau, M. Metric Repartition of Taxes, 62 note, 64 note, 23g note ;

planted wheat, 23g.
Toynbee, Mr., Lectures, 138.
Transmission of motive power for petty trades, 168 ; in Jura hills, 154^

156; at Paris, 161.
Truck-farms in the United States, in.
Turkestan cotton, 13 note.

INDEX. 259

United Kingdom, agriculture, 43 ; cattle, 45 ; position occupied in cotton
industry, 34 ; position occupied in international trade, 32, 226 ; vege-
tables, imports of, 240 seg. ; wheat crops, 43.

United States, agriculture, 76; efforts , to promote it, 79; growth of in-
dustries, 28; imports of manure, 81; market-gardening, 81, no;
State fairs, 80; truck-farms, m.

Unwin, Prof. W., transmission of motive power for petty trades, 168, 180.

Venetz, 204 note.

Vera Cruz, cotton mills, 24.

Verviers, woollen mills and clothiers, 132.

Vienna, petty trades, 160.

Vienne, Isere, shoddy factories, 156.

Vilmorin, breeding of new cereals, gg.

Vineries, in Jersey, 114; in Belgium, appendix N, 242.

Voigt, Paul, petty trades in Germany, 162.

Vorsma, cutlery village, 135, 176.

Vosges, spinning mills, 225.

Wages of agricultural labourers in Russia, 74 note.

Walsall and neighbourhoods, 137.

Warsaw, petty trades, 160.

Waste of time in the schools, 193.

Watch makers, in French Jura, 153 ; in Switzerland, 153.

Waterfalls, motive power of, 154.

Watt, James, 185, 187, 206.

Wheat, cost of growing, 71, 73 note, 74 ; planted, gs, appendix K,' 236 ;

replanted, 102, appendix L, 238.
Whitehead, Charles, Hints on Vegetable and Fruit Farming, 104.
Williams, E. E., Made in Germany, 18 note.
Woollen trade, its spreading, 35.
Wiirtemberg, spinning mills, 225.

Yakutsk barley, gg.
Yearly bread-food, 44, 100.
Young, Arthur, 144.

Zemstvos in Russia, inquiry into petty trades, 73 note, 173.

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